Walkthrough P.O.L.E.N. Pollen Review

Virtually revived from the ashes, the adventure genre, where the story of the world is told through the exploration of the environment, received a new impetus after the release of a series of successful projects ranging from Dear Esther and sensational Gone Home until recently Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. Debut project from the Finnish studio Mindfield Games combines the basic elements Gone Home with a romantic halo of conquerors of the vast expanses of space, which also inspired the creators Adrift, soma and Tacoma. But unlike their colleagues, Mindfield Games relies on the atmosphere of mysticism, contact with the unknown and incomprehensible human brain foreign consciousness.

The story takes place in an alternate reality where President Kennedy escaped a tragic death, and two superpowers, the USA and the USSR, joined forces to consistently conquer the planets. solar system. As a result, the Internet was not invented, nor were digital storage media or handheld computers. Heroes P.O.L.L.E.N live in the world of the 80s with large panel devices, typewriters and cassette recorders. Here is a tribute to retro science fiction from the films of Kubrick and Tarkovsky, where an encounter with an alien consciousness is accompanied by an ever-growing atmosphere of fear and hopelessness.

In the world P.O.L.L.E.N dominated by mega-corporations that mine minerals on the moon and build bases on Saturn's moon Titan. And humanity is increasingly scattered across the cold expanses of space. You are an employee of the company RAMA Industries go to Station M to investigate a series of strange occurrences in a research lab.

A small incident after landing leads you into the depths of the habitation compartment, where not long ago the living inhabitants vanished into the air, turning into a handful of black dust on the surface of crumpled suits, and the corners of the station sparkle from an unknown anomaly that can transport you through dimensions and time, telling the story of contact research group with an unknown organism. As in Gone Home, environment P.O.L.L.E.N filled with hundreds random objects, which can be twisted and inspected from all sides, thrown and used to further advance the story. Anomaly zones throw you between impassable sections, and specially highlighted (if you have not disabled this function in the menu) objects, along with notes and cassettes, tell the story of the disaster in a piecemeal manner.

But do not think that in addition to smooth walking and exploring the bizarre interiors in the world P.O.L.L.E.N there is nothing more. Mindfield Games offer a series of smart puzzles that require the player to make informed decisions. To open the locked door, you will have to connect the wires according to the diagram and start the dynamo. An electrified floor can be de-energized by pumping out water using all the same drawings. A hard-to-find item can be obtained with gravitational beam which immediately comes to mind after reading the instructions. Puzzles P.O.L.L.E.N require you only care and desire to explore the environment, which in turn is the basis of the entire gameplay.

Graphically, the game looks great, although at maximum settings, numerous effects significantly reduce the visibility of the environment and make it difficult for you to escape from the trap. dead space at the beginning game history. P.O.L.L.E.N supports virtual reality helmets, but even without them it works in stable 1080p at 60 frames per second on standard gaming machines. With control using game controllers, I had a little problem with dualshock, the settings of which were constantly reset, so I had to play the game on the controller from Xbox One, who also reset the settings once, but after a verbal, but not pronounced suggestion, he decided not to upset the owner and worked exceptionally perfectly.

P.O.L.L.E.N is a very coherent exploration adventure, infused with the spirit of the first space explorers and the best examples of retro sci-fi of the 80s of the last century. The game lacks visual variety and a bit of learning to keep you looking for a lost access panel that has actually been sitting in your menu for a long time. Well, as for the story as a whole, the unexpected ending, exploding the brain even without a virtual reality helmet, will not leave anyone indifferent.

We also want to give away a few keys to the game from for our readers. To do this, rate the review by clicking on the appropriate button at the top, publish it in your in social networks and also leave links to publications in the comments below.

Results summed up! Winners: by_flafi, dedpyl, 4Bone. Congratulations!

In the genre of "mankind dug up alien stuff and now we're all finished" nothing notable has happened, it seems, since the first dead space. And Pollen (the name is not entirely accurate, but let it be so for simplicity) came in very handy. A cute first-person adventure game makes a serious bid for victory from the very first frames: you have been sent to scientific station on Titan, a moon of Saturn, as your predecessor has vanished without a trace. Arriving at the scene, you hear the conversations of anxious colleagues, after which everything becomes very bad.

After a short walk in the "fresh" air, we find ourselves at an abandoned base. It is impossible to get through some obstacles just like that: you will have to look for a mysterious substance, the very one that caused the alleged death of the rest of the scientists. Objects smeared with this substance can transport you... hmm... into parallel reality? into the past? to the future? In general, you end up in the same place, but the base looks different.

Yes, the missing person was right here. And your task is to carefully make your way through obstacles, collect (in two worlds at once!) Audio diaries and restore the picture of events. By the way, despite the presence of full-fledged puzzles, Pollen is still not Myst, but Gone Home. Recordings are not the only thing that contributes to the atmosphere: it is really interesting to wander around the compartments of a small station, looking at the furnishings and personal belongings of the people who lived here.

But unlike the same Gone Home, the final does not dot the i, does not offer answers to numerous questions, and even more so does not give such an important feeling of completeness. After spending 3-4 hours collecting key items and solving not the most difficult (albeit not always obvious) mysteries supposedly separating you from the denouement of this sci-fi story, for dessert you will get some kind of acid trip, clearly inspired by Kubrick's understandable work .

Of course, there may be some charm in understatement, but not in the case when the authors first show very specific things that get up atypical for real world tricks, and then just take and put a meaningful ellipsis. Like, well, you understand. Depth. Thought. Transcendent. Catharsis. And so for ten minutes.

The ending that completely crosses out all the work of the player is half the trouble. In general, Pollen is designed in the spirit of cute retrofuturism. Well, as usual: Kennedy survived, the US and the USSR are conquering space together, and in general it is the 90s of the XX century. personal computers no, and therefore all voice diaries must be listened to while standing at the tape recorder (they are not allowed to take such devices with you), which is why, frankly, you don’t want to get acquainted with them.

Yes, the base is small, but running to the cassette players with each new find gets boring even the first two times. And to master a dozen tapes at once in a crowd is frankly boring. Pollen also has extreme requirements for such a small game, backed up by frame rate drops, although in terms of the picture it is clearly inferior to the cute ADR1FT.

February 2, 1995 - Research Base M, Kraken Mare, Titan.

In an alternate timeline of history, where the Kennedy assassination failed and the internet was never invented, the space race continued to boom as the Soviet and US programs combined their efforts to conquer the vast mineral rich expansion beyond Earth. Handing their findings over to private companies, governments gave way to corporations who would soon establish mining & research colonies all over the Solar System. Owned by one such conglomerate, Station M is a recently built research base of RAMA Industries on the Saturn's largest moon Titan.

A member of RAMA Industries’ research team has mysteriously disappeared. As a reserve employee of RAMA, you are sent to the windswept surface of Titan to investigate. With a large lunar storm looming on the horizon, you have no choice but to enter the base in search of answers…

P O L L E N is an atmospheric, suspenseful and highly interactive first person sci-fi exploration game set on Saturn’s moon Titan.

Inspired by science-fiction classics such as Solaris, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the Moon, P O L L E N's retro futuristic world is an incredibly detailed, living-breathing environment, that feels every bit as real as the one around you. Each step in the shoes of a space mechanic will transport you into the Station M, where you can try everything you can get your hands on to solve intriguing puzzles and uncover the mysteries that lie beneath the moon's crust.

P O L L E N has been designed to deliver a great experience on both regular monitors and virtual reality headsets, and is set to be released spring 2016 for Windows.

ONE GAME, TWO EXPERIENCES

Get ready to play P O L L E N in two uniquely different ways; a captivating first person exploration game on a traditional monitor, or a fully immersive virtual reality experience that transports you to the surface of Titan.

FULLY INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENT

Because Station M was created to feel every bit as real as an actual lunar research station, almost everything on the base is interactive. Even a small, simple item could be the key to solving a puzzle, and unlocking one of the many secrets of Station M.

PROFOUND STORYLINE

What lies beneath the surface of Titan? Experience the existential journey of P O L L E N that'll intrigue, surprise, and stay with you long after leaving the base. Return to Station M to discover new layers of the story that may have remained hidden on previous playthroughs.

UNIQUE SOUNDSCAPE

The sounds of Station M also have a story to tell. Listen closely to the atmospheric audio while exploring RAMA's 13th moon base. P O L L E N’s real time binaural soundscape has been designed to let you perceive audio in the most natural way, as human ears hear it.

"Exactly the kind of game I want to play On Oculus Rift"

Kotaku

"Jumped to the top of my most anticipated games list."

game revolution

"Wonderfully immersive"

Techradar

"Enormously atmospheric"

Road to VR

"There was just so, so much to do and I'm convinced everyone who plays this will be kept busy for hours upon hours"

A Kirsty Moment

"I'm incredibly impressed with this...Aside from the feeling of "Oh my god I'm actually here" that's created with the help of both the VR and the sound design, the game is just so pretty. Everything feels like it's on a space station. Everything feels like it's meant to be there. Some objects contain vital clues to the mystery that’s surrounding this place, so it’s a good thing that within the first few minutes my "explore all the things!" instinct kicked in".

Cubed Gamers

The game pleases me with its idea, now I will tell you more. We are invited to meet alternative history, namely, we see that the assassination attempt on President Kennedy was prevented, as a result of this, I don’t know for what reason, the Internet was not invented, but space race and continued between the world powers of the USSR and the USA. However, this time they decided to join forces in order to fly far from the Earth in order to find useful minerals on other planets. After the necessary data was collected, they were transferred to companies, which in turn undertook to create research colonies and mining bases on other planets. It was such a conglomerate that was named "Rama Industries", which in turn owned a base called "M", it was located on Saturn's moon called Titan.

I advise you to download POLLEN, you will get a lot of fun and excellent graphics, and you will also find out that one person from the team has disappeared, and under very unusual circumstances. What should people on Earth do? Of course, it is necessary to send a person from the company to this planet, and he, in turn, must already find out what is happening there. You will be such a person, it was you who was sent to Titan. I will say without exaggeration, you will find a very cool toy in the style of science fiction with elements of exploration, and you will play in the first person.

I want to note that before you is the Russian version of POLLEN, the language is selected in the settings or open the steam_api.ini file and there we find the Language line and change the value to russian. So what are you waiting for? Many hours of research, excellent graphics, the ability to connect the Oculus Rift virtual reality helmet and plunge into the process even more deeply. You need to visit all corners of the station "M" and only then you can find out all its secrets and understand what happened there.

For those who are not interested yet, look at the trailer below, I think it will convince you to download the POLLEN game, by the way, it only became available on Steam today (at the time the article was published), there are no reviews yet, I played a little myself, I like everything so far, virtual reality helmet Of course I don’t, but what I saw is quite enough to judge the game as a whole. This concludes my review, thank you for your attention!

System requirements

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel Core-i3 3.3GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 3.0GHz
RAM: 4GB RAM
Video Card: Nvidia GTX650 / AMD Radeon HD 7870
DirectX: Version 11
Disk space: 8 GB

RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows 10
Processor: Intel Core-i5 3.9GHz / AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz v RAM: 8 GB RAM
Video Card: Nvidia GTX970 / AMD R9 290X
DirectX: Version 11
Disk space: 9 GB

License: ShareWare - Cure for CODEX
Language: English + Russian version
The size: 4.00GB
Free download.

In fact, the adventure genre revived from the ashes, where the history of the world is told through the study of the environment, received a new impetus after the release of a series of successful projects, ranging from Dear Esther and the sensational Gone Home to the recent Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. The debut project from the Finnish studio Mindfield Games combines the basic elements of Gone Home with the romantic halo of conquerors of the vast expanses of space, which also inspired the creators Adrift, SOMA and Tacoma. But unlike their colleagues, Mindfield Games relies on the atmosphere of mysticism, contact with foreign consciousness unknown and incomprehensible to the human brain.

Story P.O.L.L.E.N takes place in an alternate reality where President Kennedy escaped a tragic death, and two superpowers, the USA and the USSR, have joined forces to consistently conquer the planets of the solar system. As a result, the Internet was not invented, nor were digital storage media or handheld computers. Heroes P.O.L.L.E.N live in the world of the 80s with large panel devices, typewriters and cassette recorders. Here is a tribute to retro science fiction from the films of Kubrick and Tarkovsky, where an encounter with an alien consciousness is accompanied by an ever-growing atmosphere of fear and hopelessness.

A small incident after landing leads you into the depths of the habitation compartment, where not long ago the living inhabitants disappeared into the air, turning into a handful of black dust on the surface of crumpled suits, and the corners of the station sparkle from an unknown anomaly that can transport you through dimensions and time, telling the story of the contact of the research groups with an unknown organism. As in Gone Home, the environment P.O.L.L.E.N is filled with hundreds of random objects that can be twisted and inspected from all sides, thrown and used to further advance the story. Anomaly zones throw you between impassable sections, and specially highlighted (if you have not disabled this function in the menu) objects, along with notes and cassettes, tell the story of the disaster in a piecemeal manner.

But do not think that in addition to smooth walking and exploring the bizarre interiors in the world P.O.L.L.E.N there is nothing more. Mindfield Games offer a series of smart puzzles that require the player to make informed decisions. To open the locked door, you will have to connect the wires according to the diagram and start the dynamo. An electrified floor can be de-energized by pumping out water using all the same drawings. A hard-to-reach item can be obtained using a gravitational beam, which immediately comes to mind after studying the instructions. Puzzles P.O.L.L.E.N require you only care and desire to explore the environment, which in turn is the basis of the entire gameplay.

Graphically, the game looks great, although at maximum settings, numerous effects significantly reduce the visibility of the environment and complicate your escape from the dead space trap at the very beginning of the game story. P.O.L.L.E.N supports virtual reality helmets, but even without them it works in stable 1080p at 60 frames per second on standard gaming machines. With control using game controllers, I had a little problem with dualshock, the settings of which were constantly reset, so I had to play the game on the controller from Xbox One, who also reset the settings once, but after a verbal, but not pronounced suggestion, he decided not to upset the owner and worked exceptionally perfectly.

We also want to give away a few keys per game from GOG.COM for our readers. To do this, rate the review by clicking on the appropriate button above, publish it on your social networks, and also leave links to publications in the comments below.