Matthew Pollesel

Ottawa

229 games reviewed
71.0 average score
70 median score
47.6% of games recommended

Is Paperman: Adventure Delivered the worst game I’ve ever played? Honestly, it’s quite possible. It has no redeeming qualities, and I got more and more annoyed every moment I spent playing it. You can’t just write it off as one of those dumb meme games that clog up digital storefronts that are intentionally bad, nor can you say that it’s so bad it’s good. It’s just flat-out terrible.

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Jun 23, 2023

There are few things as fun as a game where you get to destroy everything, so you’d think that Demolish & Build Classic would be a slam dunk. Instead, it’s just a total mess of a game.

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Aug 29, 2023

It’s been a long time since I hated a game as much as I hate Fort Solis. From top to bottom, there literally wasn’t a single thing about the game I liked. I’m sure I’ve played games that are more poorly made than Fort Solis, but for sheer dislike, I can’t think of many games that come close.

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D - XEL
Aug 2, 2022

XEL isn't a great game. It's not even a mediocre game. It's a half-finished mess that shouldn't have been released in this state.

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Aug 9, 2022

This game is terrible in every way. Whether we're talking major aspects of the game or simply minor little details, everything about it is awful.

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Aug 10, 2023

I really wish I could say that Hammer of Virtue is a fun game despite its many, many issues. Really, I do. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing as fun in games as making the world around you come crashing down. But Hammer of Virtue shows there’s limits to even that. You need to be fun and functional, and Hammer of Virtue is very clearly neither of those things.

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What makes Project Nightmares Case 36: Henrietta Kedward interesting is that it’s built around an interesting idea, except it sabotages itself by then allowing two of the dumb ideas – one of them possibly dumber than anything else I’ve ever seen – to take precedence over that interesting idea. It would be fascinating if it weren’t for the fact the end result is so mind-bogglingly awful.

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Mar 29, 2023

Even if Castle Renovator delivered on exactly what its name promised, I have a hard time imagining it'd be much more fun. There's a way to make these job sims fun, and a way to make them feel like a dull slog, and every design decision here ensures that this game falls squarely in the latter camp.

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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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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 19, 2022

Mages and Treasures may come from a developer with a decent track record, but this is proof that even developers who know what they're doing have a misfire once in awhile.

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Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021 -- or, as no one has ever called it, MMS21 -- is one of those Switch ports that doesn't seem like a whole lot of attention was put into it, and you don't need to look very hard to see why.

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Sep 25, 2023

Still, it gets really tiresome, really quickly to put down a letter, check to make sure that you haven’t placed it in the wrong place, then put down another letter, and then check again...and so on. Basically, the game goes place-check-place-check for about five minutes, then you’re done and it’s on to the next puzzle.

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Jul 22, 2022

It feels as if the developers wanted to make a different, more interesting game, but couldn't figure out what they wanted to do with it, so instead they turned it into a sequel for a game that wasn't particularly good or memorable in the first place. You're left with the feeling that they didn't really care about Freddy Spaghetti 2 -- and really, neither should you.

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The controls are so bad, in fact, that they outweigh whatever good or interesting or intriguing things Pendula Swing may be trying to do here. There's a lot going on, and there are all kinds of ideas, but the only way to experience any of it is by dealing with constant frustration, and in the end it doesn't seem worth it.

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Oct 20, 2022

That may be Gotham Knights' most egregious crime: it feels like a cutrate, cosplay version of Batman and of the Arkham series. Nothing here is original, and everything feels like it's striving -- and failing -- to emulate much, much better games. There's an argument to be made, I guess, that if you stop thinking about it as a Batman game and just judge it on its own merits, it's not half-bad -- but even if you do that, you.re still left with the reality that the game that doesn't come anywhere near matching up to what the genre is capable of. This is a mediocre game through and through, and Batman branding or no, it's not really worth your time.

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Jan 30, 2023

Despite the sheer amount of words that have been written about the game, the reality is that it's just a forgettable, mediocre game. It does plenty of things very poorly, but it also does one or two things well enough that you can't say it's completely and irredeemably awful. There's no real reason to seek the game out, and there's no reason (apart, maybe, from that stupid talking bracelet) to avoid it at all costs: Forspoken is just kind of there.

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The game is plagued by camera controls so dire, they make it impossible to enjoy anything else. With some major tweaks to those controls, it'd be easy to imagine Molly Medusa becoming an under-the-radar hit, but for now, it's definitely one to avoid.

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May 26, 2023

From the moment you boot up Death or Treat, it's clear where all the care and attention went. You're greeted with a really nice-looking animation sequence that looks far better than nearly any other game you could name. It's rare that a game that boasts of being hand-drawn or hand-painted actually looks amazing, but in this case, you could honestly say that about Death or Treat and not be exaggerating. Unfortunately, it's all downhill from that point.

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