{"id":71258,"date":"2018-12-24T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-24T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/uncanny_valley"},"modified":"2018-12-24T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-24T17:00:00","slug":"review-uncanny-valley-a-commendable-take-on-old-school-horror-let-down-by-its-own-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/12\/24\/review-uncanny-valley-a-commendable-take-on-old-school-horror-let-down-by-its-own-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Uncanny Valley &#8211; A Commendable Take On Old-School Horror Let Down By Its Own Design"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/uncanny_valley\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/uncanny_valley\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id=\"\">\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Uncanny Valley Review - Screenshot 1 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94368\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94368\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Uncanny Valley Review - Screenshot 1 of 3\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Horror, when done right, can be a truly wonderful thing to behold &#8211; especially in the interactive realm of video games. Find the right mechanics, marry them to a setup that sells its dark heart, and find a balance that doesn\u2019t undersell or dilute its scares and building sense of dread. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/uncanny_valley\"><strong>Uncanny Valley<\/strong><\/a> comes close in so many ways to nailing this formula, but its nightmarish potential is often undone by some odd design decisions.<\/p>\n<p>Things start off well. Too well, perhaps. You\u2019re Tom, a man looking to put a little distance between himself and his past. With the added need to gather some much-needed cash, Tom decides to kill two pixel art birds with one pixel art stone by taking a security job looking after the site of a robotics firm in the middle of nowhere. But Tom is haunted by some rather eldritch dreams, where he explores a seemingly empty city while being shadowed by creatures of pure shadow.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Uncanny Valley Review - Screenshot 2 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94373\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94373\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Uncanny Valley Review - Screenshot 2 of 3\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>These dreams help break up Cowardly Creations\u2019 two-to-three hour-long survival horror, and for the first half of the game, it comes together with a real sense of palpable fear. As a night watchman, you\u2019ll explore the 8-bit-style floors of Melior, and with only a few condensed in-game hours to do so, it soon becomes clear there\u2019s more to this job than meets the eye. Why did all the employees suddenly clear out? What lies beneath the facility in the sublevels? And how does it tie into your increasingly unhinged nightmares?<\/p>\n<p>Uncanny Valley clearly wants to rekindle the purity of an old school survival horror, mixing in the occasional puzzle and moment of action. You can see the DNA of <strong>Clock Tower<\/strong> and the original <strong>Resident Evil<\/strong> here, but it never lets either of these genres dilute the simple pleasure of exploring the silent halls of a facility as something terrible slowly unfurls itself. However, while the game is careful to avoid over-egging its own pudding, it still manages to undo much of its own hard work as a result.<\/p>\n<p>The first half of the game keeps you on your toes by limiting the amount of time you can explore your new workplace while on your rounds &#8211; and you\u2019ll even pass out from exhaustion if you snoop for too long without returning to bed. But then, for seemingly no reason, Uncanny Valley drops the time restraints and just lets you explore untethered as it rushes to reveal the true nature of its story. That shift in parameters would have been a much bigger issue had this been a much longer game, but it\u2019s an odd choice nonetheless.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Uncanny Valley Review - Screenshot 3 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94372\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94372\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Uncanny Valley Review - Screenshot 3 of 3\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>That compact length does serve a purpose, though. Each decision you make in the game &#8211; from which floors you explore first to how long you engage in conversations with the handful of NPCs you encounter &#8211; all coalesce to lead you down various (and almost always grisly) narrative paths. Non-linear stories can often lead to some interesting and systemic moments, but Uncanny Valley\u2019s sense of freedom (especially later on when you\u2019re not limited by time) too often leads you to rapidly advance the plot, with large chunks of story left unresolved.<\/p>\n<p>That sense of consequence does bring a thrilling sense of reality to an otherwise fantastical premise. As you push further and further into Melior\u2019s secrets, there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll end up injuring yourself. These maladies will affect how fast you can move, and how mobile you can ultimately be. Hurt yourself too much and you\u2019ll either die or find yourself unable to guide Tom to the next objective. It\u2019s in these moments you\u2019ll appreciate the relatively short run time of each playthrough.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is it isn\u2019t very hard to work out the mystery behind Uncanny Valley\u2019s horror &#8211; with so many cassette tapes to collect and PC terminals to read, even the most lackadaisical of investigators can piece together what\u2019s to come. When paired with the non-linear approach to connecting plot points, you\u2019re left with a game that squanders much of the dread it tries so hard to build.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Uncanny Valley\u2019s desire to hark back to the simpler days of survival horror is commendable, especially in those early moments where you\u2019re flitting between abstract nightmares and a security job that feels increasingly isolated. However, the sheer openness of its non-linear plot means it\u2019s all too easy to jump large sections of the story as you stumble on one of the game\u2019s secrets too early on. Still, with a strict consequence-based system that rewards and punishes you in equal measure, Uncanny Valley has a lot of potential. It\u2019s just a shame it doesn\u2019t fully live up to it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Horror, when done right, can be a truly wonderful thing to behold &#8211; especially in the interactive realm of video games. Find the right mechanics, marry them to a setup that sells its dark heart, and find a balance that doesn\u2019t undersell or dilute its scares and building sense of dread. Uncanny Valley comes close [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}