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CONSOLE: NES DEVELOPER: ICOM Simulations PUBLISHER: Kemco
RELEASE DATE (NA): June 1991 GENRE: Adventure
// review by Lydia

Glad I didn't get an invitation.

Uninvited... I wish it had stayed that way. There I was, just minding my own business and looking for some weird games to review. Then, one game shone forth from the depths of the internet like a mobile phone screen at 3 a.m. It promised horror. It promised suspense. It promised to call me after the first date. None of which actually happened. Shame, really. I thought we would really hit it off. Anyway, Uninvited was originally released for the Macintosh but wiggled its way into the NES in the early 1990s. Considering my old Apple computer kicked the bucket years ago, I opted for the more colorful NES version. Should've gone with DOS... it never lets me down! *secretly shoves Cosmo's Cosmic Adventures and Castle of the Winds under the rug* I was hoping to find a hidden gem in this game; however, all I found were a million unnecessary things that drew away from what the game was actually about.

CRASH! It begins with the front of your car snogging a tree by the side of the road. You must have had a wild night because not only do you not know where you are, but you've also lost your nameless older sister! You spy an old mansion nearby and decide to do a little breaking and entering. Of course, the first thing you do when looking for help is sift through other people's mailboxes. You find a pendant which opens the front door... for some reason. Pft, what am I talking about? Keys are so 1970s, am I right? As soon as you enter the mansion, the door slams behind you and locks itself. Great, you're stuck in a stereotypical horror movie. Okay, where are the trap doors and gullible (yet expendable) peers waiting to run headfirst into a circular saw? Nothing? Guess it's up to me, then! Here I go!

Back when this first came out, this game was regarded as change-your-pants creepy. These days, though, not so much. The horror game genre has grown exponentially, leaving games like Uninvited in the metaphorical dust. This game never scared me—I didn't even flinch once... and I'm the kind of girl who hits the ceiling when someone clears their throat unexpectedly. There are only a few "shock" factors that are present in this game, and you can always see them coming. For instance, a parasol-wielding ghost appears in a hallway when you try to go through one of the painted on doors. You must be one ugly dude because she keeps her back to you. If you choose to "hit" the ghost, she will turn on you and look at you creepily while threatening to scratch your back. If you use something suspiciously called "No-Ghost" on her, she will melt like the Wicked Witch of the West.


"That's what you get for taking the last pie slice!" -Woman Without Skin

One of the things I noticed the most in Uninvited was how many unnecessary things there were. You can almost literally pick up everything but women. Towels, possessed rubies, ashtrays—nothing is safe from your kleptomaniac sticky fingers. You will end up picking everything up in the slight chance that you might need to utilize that frying pan or spiffy hat somewhere. You will collect potions that the game hints that you'll need. Turns out, NOPE. You will grab things you are pretty sure you will need only to reach the end of the game with an inventory full of useless items that have nothing to do with the progression of the story. In fact, about 85% of them are as useful as an umbrella during a Floridian rainstorm. (If you don't know, their rain falls sideways at a zillion miles per hour. Each drop is as big as the normal American ego. I'm American, so I'm allowed to say this.) Most of the items that you will actually use make sense with what they're being interacted with. However, I was not expecting to use an axe to open a cookie jar that's located in a number locked safe... to get a cookie for a cute little bouncing demon who taunts you with a key that you desperately need. Then there's the strange bouncing blue sentient orb that requires you to release a bird from a cemetery, recapture it in a cage, and let it free again to be chased and eaten. Luckily, some items' descriptions will tell you what they're intended to be used for.

I was pretty surprised to find at least one movie reference in this game that I actually understood. "Dogs... Why did it have to be dogs?" Anything that alludes to Indiana Jones is fine in my book. If there were any more references, I certainly didn't understand them. I'm such a young'un, you know. As it turns out, the horror that is behind the monstrosities in the mansion has inhabited your own sister. I knew it... older sisters are demonic. Bring out the holy water! As much as I would enjoy being free of a demon-possessed sister, the game lost some likeability points with me by having a snake eat a cat. Bad game! Bad!

Overall, Uninvited was rather dull and forgettable. Simply navigating through the menus is extremely cumbersome. While it held my interest long enough to finish it the first time, it definitely isn't a game I'll be picking back up to play again anytime soon. Due to its age, the attempted suspense is as lost as someone trying to play E.T for Atari. I'm sure there are plenty of good, suspenseful horror game titles from those years when developers couldn't depend on fancy graphics to scare the feathers off of a duck. It's simple, it's predictable, and its appearance is nothing to frame and put on the wall of the Wendy's restroom. I'll give it some leniency, but not much.


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