Matthew Pollesel

Ottawa

287 games reviewed
71.8 average score
75 median score
47.4% of games recommended
B- - NHL 23
Oct 14, 2022

NHL 23 review for PlayStation, Xbox As solid as NHL 23 is, it's hardly a must-play game if you have any previous entries in the series. Given that year(s)-old sports games tend to be pretty inexpensive, that makes it hard to justify buying this one new when you?ll get basically the same experience buying a game from last year or the year before. Don?t get me wrong, you'll get a very well-made game if you do decide you need all the latest rosters and draft classes, but it's up to you to decide how badly you need those things.

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Oct 12, 2022

There's no denying that LEGO Bricktales gets awfully close to capturing the feeling of playing with LEGO. It's not quite there yet thanks to the challenging controls, but if you can overlook that, there's fun to be had here.

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Nothing does Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo any favours, because all of it is so bad. In terms of quality, it's about as far removed as you can get from The Master of Suspense. Rather than playing this game, you'd be much better off watching Vertigo, and Notorious, and Psycho, and Rear Window, and whatever other movies you could squeeze into the 10 or so hours it would take you to play Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo, and I guarantee you that it would be time better spent.

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Oct 4, 2022

Little Orpheus' two strong points are the same as the strong points from The Chinese Room's other two games. The thing is, here they've added a third element -- platforming -- that's not nearly as compelling, and it's enough to make the game a far cry from their previous standard.

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Oct 3, 2022

There's a massive gulf between finding a game's concept charming and actually wanted to play that game, and Bear and Breakfast never comes anywhere close to crossing that gaping chasm.

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Sep 30, 2022

No Place for Bravery is still a very solid game. Technical issues may mean that doesn't like up to the standards of the games it's trying to emulate, but even so, there's a lot of good stuff going on here, and if you can look past those issues (or even wait for some patches), there's definitely something here worth playing.

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Sep 28, 2022

Easy Come Easy Golf is a joy to play. Whether you're a newcomer to the sport/the developer or a seasoned veteran, this game will have something for you. It shows that even if the name on the game may have changed, it's still fully lives up to Clap Hanz's very high standards.

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Sep 27, 2022

Lack of story aside, it's hard to argue that Research and Destroy doesn't do a decent job of developing its own niche within this crowded turn-based strategy genre. It's definitely better if you can play it with others ? whether in-person or online -- but it's solid enough that even if you're playing solo, you should get a few hours of fun out of it.

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Sep 26, 2022

Gigapocalypse is an odd mixture of games. You wouldn't think there's an intersection between Rampage, Tamagotchi, and clicker games -- and yet, here we have a game that combines all three. And you know what? It mostly works.

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It's that simplicity that's SD Gundam Battle Alliance's bigger problem. Simply put, the fighting just isn't that interesting. You have a couple of different melee and ranged attacks, but you just do them over and over again until you've wiped out the enemies, ending with a big boss fight, and it never really mixes it up.

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Sep 22, 2022

Royal Frontier is enjoyable enough -- and short enough -- that it's worth playing through. It's fun to see a game adding new elements to a well-worn formula, and it makes this game an easy recommendation.

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Sep 21, 2022

It's not inconceivable that LEGO Brawls could turn into something fun one day. If it were beefed up with loads more content, along with more interesting and more dynamic fighters, it would definitely be a lot more interesting. But in this state, with so little content -- and with the content that is there being of such poor quality -- there's no way to classify LEGO Brawls as anything other than a massive disappointment.

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B - Voyage
Sep 19, 2022

Voyage is probably the first game I've ever played from Ratalaika where its visuals are so good that they make the game worth playing, even if the gameplay itself isn't that challenging or exciting. It may not mean that you need to stop what you're doing right now to play Voyage, but it does mean that if you decide to pick this game up, you may get a lot more out of it than you could've possibly expected going in.

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Sep 19, 2022

You wouldn't think a fishing game, of all things, as being cuddly and cozy and inviting -- but Moonglow Bay proves that it's not just possible, it's also pretty fun.

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Sep 16, 2022

Hell Pie clearly isn't for everybody, but if you're the sort of person who loves pushing boundaries -- and your definition of boundaries hasn't changed much since you were in high school -- then it might just be the game for you.

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Sep 15, 2022

There are worse ways to waste three hours than in the presence of very good voice actors doing their thing over gorgeous visuals. And, like I said, the game always tries to make you feel like you're in the presence of something great. But the reality is, no matter how much South of the Circle aspires to greatness, with a story like this, it's never more than merely okay.

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C - Yuoni
Sep 14, 2022

If you're fond of stealth horror and don?t mind a bit of shallowness, then Yuoni could be something you'll enjoy, at least for a short time. But for anyone else, I don't think it'll be nearly as appealing.

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Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! is the kind of game you can play over and over again as you try to uncover all the different twists and turns you missed the first few times around (and given the sheer number of possibly story combinations, you'll need to play through the game several times and several ways to see everything). Much like inkle's other, later games, Sorcery! is highly replayable and an essential experience for anyone who's even kind of interested in adventure games.

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Sep 8, 2022

Pure Crosswords is a very good take on the genre. I mean, it doesn't reinvent what people have been doing with pencil and paper for the last 150 years, but it also doesn't need to do that. It just needs to approximate the pencil and paper experience on a Switch screen, and it does just that.

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Sep 7, 2022

PAC-MAN WORLD Re-PAC may not be one of the greatest games of all time being brought back for a new generation to discover, but it's still a decent enough 3D platformer that lots of people -- myself included -- are going to enjoy.

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