P·O·L·L·E·N

in library

3.4/5

( 8 Reviews )

3.4

8 Reviews

English & 7 more

Overall most helpful review

Posted on: April 21, 2016

MisterCROWE

Verified owner

Games: 57 Reviews: 1

Great game

Great game but for the end to enjoyable I think a VR headset is needed. I did not play with VR so the end was meh. The story was pretty simple, explore base and find out wtf happened to the peeps living there. Great environment design (reminded of Alien: Isolation due to the retro future setting), great atmosphere, great sound. It felt very well paced, although sometimes I got frustrated with the slowness of the character him/herself while doing certain tasks (going up stairs AHH). The puzzles are nice, not too hard that it causes rage, but hard enough to cause you to pause and think. The story is told through items that can be located throughout the game, such as cassette tapes and notes/letters, they tell just enough to keep the player interested, but don't give away too much info. The only reason i don't give it 5 stars is due to the VR requirement for the ending to be enjoyed... ***if you're ok with knowing some vague info about the ending then read the next line*** ...and the lack of any real ending to speak of.

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: April 24, 2016

AngryAlien

Verified owner

Games: 250 Reviews: 5

A pretty husk with with small content

POLLEN is a very pretty looking game and I am sure it looks amazing with a VR set. But this is also the problem with this game, since after finishing it in less than 4.5 hours (and I took my time) I came to the conclusion that I've just wasted 20 Euro for a very prolonged VR demo. The story itself begins promising. These are the 90s, although we are in an alternate reality where the two power blocks learned to combine their resources to explore space instead of jumping at each others throat. On a research station on Titan, something unspecified happens and you are send there as a replacement. The story unfolds very slowly and mostly through audio tapes and a view notes. Unfortunately, nothing really gets explained and you get only a view hints about what happened before your arrival. And the ending... well, in my eyes you need quite some audacity to sell something like this as "conclusion". Nothing gets explained, nothing really gets a satisfying conclusion. POLLEN was an impulse buy, I knew nothing about the game, although I did expect something along the lines of SOMA. But the game is little more than a walkin simulator. You walk around, listen to some tapes, play with stuff, solve some very basic puzzles and then the game is over. One of the selling points of this game is "interactivity", but "interactivity" actually means that you open locker doors, play with switches that do nothing or move a forklift a couple of centimeters and kick chairs. You can pick up stuff and here "interactivity" means that you can shake those things. And when you get a bit more creative and try things like putting a beer can into a microwave, then nothing happens at all. I am under the strong impression that the devs focused all their energy on the VR part and put things like the story on the "finish when there is still time" list. Unfortunately, there seemingly was not much time left when the VR part was finished. On the plus side, the game has nice bees though.

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: October 14, 2020

shylock.596

Verified owner

Games: 756 Reviews: 103

Clunky Game Play and Poor Optimization

I had waited a while to play P.O.L.L.E.N due to performance issues. The wait was not worth it. The store page talks about how interactive the game is but all that means is you can pick up pretty much any object but there is no reason to do so for much of it. The game’s puzzles are decent but a lot of it is made worse by the handling of objects. Picking them up and inserting them into spaces is very clunky. There is also very little idea of where you must go next or what to do there. I’m not asking for a giant arrow pointing the way but some more work could have been done to make subtle hints. One part I loved though was the alternate history background story. There was a lot of detail that went into it and it is represented well in the game in terms of explaining why certain tech is more advanced and some is worse than what we had at that time period in our timeline. The story itself was interesting as well and I was trying to enjoy it but the clunky game play and constant searching for what to do next was getting in the way. Lastly the graphics were no better than decent. Object detail; lighting; shadows; all of it was alright but nowhere near as good as it should have been for needing such horsepower to run the game well maxed out. I played P.O.L.L.E.N. on Linux. It never crashed on me and I didn’t notice any glitches or bugs. The performance and optimization was atrocious though. Even with my 5700XT I still had the odd dip here. The game uses the Unity engine. The game uses an auto save system. The game has 8 graphics options; 2 AO options; 3 AA options and an FOV slider than goes from 60-120. I played version 1.01 of P.O.L.L.E.N. Settings Used: Highest; TSMAA; HBAO+ Disk Space Used: 7.4GB GPU Usage: 1-99 % VRAM Usage: 6896-7714 MB CPU Usage: 18-48 % RAM Usage: 5-5.5 GB Frame Rate: 39-135 FPS AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4 | RX 5700 XT 8GB | Mesa 20.0.8 | Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500GB | Linux Mint 20 | Kernel 5.4.0-48 | Wine 5.19 | DXVK 1.7.1L

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: November 20, 2021

pierremont

Verified owner

Games: 207 Reviews: 1

Loved it

Loved the game. I've played it in VR and it's true, it's a lot better this way. The ending is amazing, a true work of art

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: February 19, 2023

Megabyte

Games: 559 Reviews: 112

Intriguing first go.

P.O.L.L.E.N. is a very interesting title which can definitely keep the player engaged. While at it’s core it is a walking-sim title, it has the right balance of intrigue, mystery, and even a dash of creepiness to keep you wanting to see just what it’s all about. Simply put, if that description appeals to you, you will enjoy the trip. Sadly, however, it is very short and very much a one trick pony. Once you’ve seen your way to the end, there is literally zero reason to go back and play again. As such, I would recommend the title if, again, that description strikes you as interesting, it would be worth your time to pick it up on sale or when it drops in price, but you might well want to wait till then. If, however, you need action in your gaming diet, stay the hell away. To put it bluntly, this game was not made for you.

Is this helpful to you?

User reviews

Something went wrong. Try refresh page.

This game is waiting for a review. Take the first shot!

{{ item.percentage }}%

Awaiting more reviews

An error occurred. Please try again later.

Other ratings

Add a review

Edit a review

Your rating:

Stars and all fields are required

Not sure what to say? Start with this:

What kept you playing?
What kind of gamer would enjoy this?
Was the game fair, tough, or just right?
What’s one feature that really stood out?
Did the game run well on your setup?

Inappropriate content. Your reviews contain bad language. Inappropriate content. Links are not allowed. Inappropriate content. Content contains gibberish. Review title is too short. Review title is too long. Review description is too short. Review description is too long.

Not sure what to write?

You cannot save your review due to the following reasons:

You need to select star rating
You need to enter review title
You need to enter the content of your review

Filters:

No reviews matching your criteria

English Deutsch polski français русский 中文(简体) Others

Verified owners Others

Last 30 days Last 90 days Last 6 months Whenever

After release During Early Access

Discover CD PROJEKT RED games

Highlights

Featured

Close, but not an exact hit

P·O·L·L·E·N

Other ratings

Add a review

Edit a review

Delete this review?

Report this review

Additional Details (required):

Report this review