Review: THE UNCERTAIN: LIGHT AT THE END Is Lifeless
The Uncertain: Light at the End is a game from developer New Game Order and publisher META Publishing that released on Steam back in October. The game is getting ready to launch on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One sometime in 2021. I was offered the chance to review the game, and I thought I’d give it a go.
The Uncertain is a story-driven adventure game set in a post-apocalyptic world. Humanity disappeared from the face of the Earth and has been replaced by robots. Together with Emily, one of the survivors, you will have to witness how people try to live in a world ruled by robots.
First things first. Light at the End is the second chapter in the story. The first chapter is The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day. I did not play the first one, but I’ve heard that Light at the End is not a direct sequel and therefore unnecessary to know what’s going on in the story. I found this to be true. You can load up the game and you get enough of the story to know what’s going on.
Light at the End plays a lot like a modern point-and-click adventure game like Day of the Tentacle. This type of game can be very fun if it has a great or even fun story to tell. You’ll end up walking up to just about everything seeing what you can interact with and what you can’t in an effort to solve puzzles and try to figure out what the next step is. This is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think overall, these mechanics in the game were done well. There are some puzzles that you’ll need to solve as you go about which I am always a fan of. For instance, there’s one where you need to move colored lights around on a board until you have a unique configuration in each row and column.
The story itself is fairly interesting as well. It’s a post apocalyptic world where robots have taken over and you are part of a small group of survivors trying to get by. You’re often sent out on supply runs for medicine, parts, etc. Is it mind blowing? No. But, it doesn’t feel super generic and actually seems to have some thought put into it.
The final thing that I want to praise is the ambient music. It is absolutely amazing. It does a fantastic job of setting the tone for the game and for each scene. They get huge props.
Now we get to where I am less than impressed with Light at the End. First, let’s talk about the graphics. Anything that is not a human looks fine. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s fine for an indie game. Then, we have the humans. From a distance, they look fine. Then, you get close for conversations and they just look bad. The people all look so soulless. These people have no emotion which is a huge problem when the game is all about the story and the emotions of these people. Combine that with very bad animations and you lose a lot of the heart the game is supposed to have.
In addition, the voice acting really takes you out as well. It sounds like the actors recorded in complete isolation and aren’t reacting to anything else going on. This completely kills the mood. Plus, whoever put the lines together doesn’t understand timing and spacing. There were too many times when Character A would finish their sentence and Character B would start their sentence within a second. There are also times when the character probably should’ve paused for effect and instead they keep going.
The Uncertain: Light at the End has a decent story from the bit I’ve played, but for a game all about the story and drama, it takes every chance it can to kill that drama. It really is a shame.
