Uncanny Valley

Uncanny Valley's desire to hark back to the simpler days of survival horror is commendable, especially in those early moments where you're flitting between abstract nightmares and a security job that feels increasingly isolated. However, the sheer openness of its non-linear plot means it's all too easy to jump large sections of the story as you stumble on one of the game's 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's just a shame it doesn't fully live up to it.

Uncanny Valley doesn't always get it right, but still manages to be an effective horror adventure well-worth your time.

I have never been too into survival horror games, but have played and really enjoyed some over the years. I was hoping that Uncanny Valley would be one of the good ones. For me, it failed to do so–it wasn't terrible but the lack of a linear storyline made it more confusing than enjoyable for me. Fans of horror survival games may enjoy it more; however, casual players of the genre may want to wait for a price slash.

Overall, Uncanny Valley is a bit of a gamble, banking on drawing you in with the initial weirdness and sense of unease, and that being enough to then sustain your interest as you continue to attack the game from different angles in search of a better outcome. I have no doubt some people will enjoy the mystery and the investigation of it all, exploring choices in the hopes of better seeing the big picture. For everyone else, though, either interest will wane before the first runthrough is completed or when it becomes clear that a fair amount of repetition will be in order to understand what exactly is going on.

A bloody terrifying horror game hiding within the shell of an admittedly broken experience.

While it delivers on its promise to get back to the roots of survival horror, Uncanny Valley also adds a bit of the tedium from that bygone era. If players are willing to dig and look past some repetition, they'll find a game that makes them think and occasionally scares them well.

Uncanny Valley is a short but fun PS4 release that is the perfect bitesized release to play between larger games. This being a cross-buy release means you can enjoy it at home or on the go, always making progress in the game's story in short or long bursts. You're looking at roughly 3-4 hours to complete a single run of the game, which is a good chunk of content for the asking price. I definitely think you should check this one out if you're a fan of horror games. You'll be pleasantly surprised!

It is unfortunate, because the atmosphere that Uncanny Valley conveys in every room, and around the intrigue of the vague story is spooky enough that this could've been a good game. However, the poorly executed gameplay mechanics really lets the title down. Once the game does away with the exploration, and becomes more of a survival horror, the health and gun mechanics fall completely flat, as uninspiring shootouts occur, and Tom more likely than not succumbs to the darkness due to the poor button mapping of reloading and shooting a gun. The story has enough intrigue to get the adventure started, but unfortunately Uncanny Valley just isn't worth it to replay multiple times in order to achieve the different endings.

Uncanny Valley tries to be poetic story of horror, but it fails to deliver on this front in most cases. We are a security guard who is to protect some sort of facility and it depends on us where the story does. That's why for me it wasn't survival horror, I didn't visit lower levels. I didn't explore where I was unwanted. I was a good guy, and if story choices can strip you of the main hook of the game, it's a bad design.

Uncanny Valley has strong presentation and an interesting story to tell but it’s held back by bad execution and cumbersome controls.