Whelp, once again the world has been overtaken by robots and Humanity is barely able to survive. The Uncertain: Light At The End is an adventure puzzle game, by developer New Game Order and publisher META Publishing, where you play out the game’s story by progressing through chapters and solving puzzles as you do so. While there is some success with the game, there is a lot of opportunities for improvement that could be made with future patches and updates. While the story and puzzle minigames can be engaging and challenging, it’s hard to stay invested in either due to the design quality and voice acting. Is this second installment worth your time? Let’s find out.
Story
The Uncertain: Light At The End is the second installment to The Uncertain series and throws us into a world controlled by autonomous robots. After a frightening event where the once subservient machines drugged and kidnapped most of Humanity, the remaining survivors huddle together in small pockets scavenging and fighting for survival. Traversing through the cities is incredibly dangerous due to roaming police bots, and has become increasingly challenging due to more domestic robots also reporting any Human they see. In this iteration, you follow Emily as she and her group attempt to eke out a living in these treacherous conditions.
Early on, you get a sense of who the characters are; their goals, personalities, and ambitions. Throughout the game, you will be able to make decisions that… don’t affect much of anything. Maybe some voice lines will change depending on your actions, but the story will quickly railroad itself back on its predesigned track, so don’t worry too much about making the right choices. You’ll be fine either way. While the concept itself is interesting, it isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. A group of survivors, trying to survive, run into extreme adversity, and through loss, sacrifice, and a little luck, a few of them manage to find new reasons to push forward. What makes this story unique is its cast, but again, we run into familiar tropes among them also. Developer New Game Order tells… a story. One we’ve seen. One we’re familiar with. One we understand. Certain parts do seem rushed. Others seemed forced in order to conform to the narrative, but it is still a fun and interesting concept regardless of a few missed opportunities to make it stand out.
Gameplay & Mechanics
The Uncertain: Light At The End has two main gameplay loops: Scavenger Hunt, and Puzzles. Scavenger Hunt is where you spend your time looking for clues scattered throughout the level in order to advance to the next Puzzle. The Uncertain: Light At The End hits the basics with easy-to-see popups when you’re close to interactables, button prompts to give you an idea of what it is you’re interacting with, but nothing noteworthy. Moving through the levels can be painfully slow with clunky animations weighing down the tense atmosphere. An example is in the first level: Once you restore power to the refrigerator, you have to press a button to rotate the shelves and check off the items on your scavenger hunt. However, if you attempt to press the button while you’re character is not directly in front of the fridge, you’re treated to the most excruciatingly slow animation of Emily trying to remember how to move her body two inches to the right in order to hit a button. And please, please don’t accidentally check the shelf to see if you can grab the items yet, only to find out that you can’t and have to get back into position to press the button again.
The puzzles in the game are what offer it some redemption. They are varied, challenging, and best of all, completely optional! Developer New Game Order has built-in a much-appreciated skip button, allowing you to automatically solve the puzzle in front of you and get on with the game. Math puzzles are definitely not my thing and, with the first puzzle in the game being one, I knew I was going to have a bad time with this title. Fortunately, after spending 10 minutes with the thing, I found the skip button and was on my way. Most of the other puzzles were more than doable and even fun. These were truly the strongest area of The Uncertain: Light At The End. Aside from that, there are a few quick time events scattered through the story, but not enough to warrant its own section.
Aesthetics & Sound
Aesthetically, the art quality is mixed. While most of the backgrounds, cityscapes, and levels are oozing high res goodness, the character models look just as rough as an indy project from 2010. I know we’re supposed to be afraid of the robots, but these some of the creepiest, dead-eyed, unblinking character models I’ve seen in a while. The voice acting, at first, seemed lacking. Something was missing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. That is, until I messed around in the options and found there is a Russian voice setting as well. Believing that I’d found the original voice audio, I quickly switched to that and… I still wasn’t impressed. I don’t speak Russian, and I don’t pretend to know how authentic Russian is supposed to sound, but the voice acting was still extremely lacking in my opinion.
Summary
The Uncertain: Light At The End is a game. That’s really all it’s got going for it. For everything it did well, it only did so by sticking to the bare basics without taking too many risks on improving or innovating. Its opportunity areas, however, are ever-present and in need of improvement. Bugs and technical glitches run abound from start to finish and while I have yet to encounter anything game-breaking, the immersion is long gone before it even has a chance to establish itself. I hope Developer New Game Order takes the time to at least iron out the rougher technical parts of the game. There is some true potential here. But for now, I wouldn’t give this title a high recommendation.
5/10
Check Out The Uncertain: Light At The End Trailer:
The Uncertain: Light At The End is available for $14.99 for PC via Steam.
Steam Review
As the (self-proclaimed) King of Casuals, I'm always seeking out new titles to play and experience across all platforms. Eventually, I have ambitions to take the many different styles of this medium to create titles that will wow the masses in fresh, innovative ways.
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