History UnintentionalUncannyValley / VideoGames

* Egosoft's ''[[Videogame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' series have traditionally been plagued by the uncanny valley. When the first game, ''Videogame/XBeyondTheFrontier'' came out in 1999, it had decent character portraits (2d, pre-rendered) and decent voice acting, bar MadLibsDialogue on random [=NPCs=]. Come ''X3: Albion Prelude'' in 2011, they're still using the pretty much the same portraits as ''Beyond The Frontier'' did - ''a decade prior'', with English voice actors that have even more odd pauses and intonations in their speech causing them to fall like a rock into the valley. ''Videogame/XRebirth'' finally revamped characters to modern standards (real-time, 3D) but a [[YouALLLookFamiliar lack of variety]] and plethora of [[http://i.imgur.com/AsT3blP.gif terrifying]] [[ObviousBeta glitches at release]] causes them to dip down into uncanny valley; thankfully, the [=NPCs=] MadLibsDialogue has been toned down and they voice actors speak in more natural tones.

* The UsefulNotes/AtariST and UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} versions of ''VideoGame/ChuckieEgg'' replaced the main character with a hat-wearing anthropomorphic egg, whose bulbous pink in-game sprite is a somewhat unnerving sight.

* LetsPlay/{{Diabetus}} points out this very phenomenon in ''VideoGame/DeepFear'''s cutscenes during the [[WebVideo/{{Retsupurae}} Ronguprae]] of the game. Though released in 1999 for the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn, the pre-rendered graphics resemble CGI from the ''beginning'' of the decade.

* Whoever designed Doc Louis' eyes in the UsefulNotes/NintendoWii version of ''VideoGame/PunchOut'' needs to honestly be charged with something. The game itself is silly enough and cartoony, but whenever a round ends and it shows Little Mac in his corner with Doc, his eyes are always disturbingly fixed upon you... not your in-game character, but staring at the screen at YOU, and the eyes appear to follow you.

** In most 3D games, characters and objects that are far from the camera are rendered with less polygons in order to optimize performance on the game's engine. When done right, you won't notice how low poly the models are in the distance. When it's not done right, the results are ''very'' noticeable. For example, ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' renders Mario's model with less polygons when the camera is zoomed out and it wasn't too noticeable (unless you looked for it) since the game was made at a very low resolution. When the game was re-released in HD for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch, the low polygon version of Mario can be seen a lot more clearly where you can see the very triangular hat, hands, and feet.

* Earlier ''VideoGame/{{Tenchu}}'' games had [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-hyvXegLuw weird, generic, corpsey CGI scenes]] that were actually more unconfortable to watch than the blocky game-rendered cutscenes. Fortunately, ever since the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 era they got less awkward.

* The original ''VideoGame/{{Siren}}''. Characters had animated images of actors as their face textures, with their expressions made through frames instead of actual polygon animation. It made it all seem slightly real, but also unnatural, and added to the dreamy feeling the game had.

** ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'': The FMV CG cutscenes, [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny despite being lauded at the time]], have this effect, especially since Takayoshi Sato had no Caucasian people available to base the models' faces on. Cheryl Mason in particular [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/silent/images/a/a3/CherylMason.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20141115155218 has it the worst]] since she's supposed to be a 7-year-old girl, but her model just makes her look a shrunken-down adult woman.

** The robot from VideoGame/MarioPaint , who later became Coursebot. Although he looks less scary now, he had a very unsettling face and did not fit the childish aesthetic of Mario games.

* Some people found the title screen from ''[[Toys/{{Barbie}} Barbie Horse Adventures: Blue Ribbon Race]]'' for the Game Boy Advance to be downright terrifying, largely because the horse is animated like its legs are made of rubber, and since the horse itself looks realistic, it comes off as unnatural.