Uninvited Review - Halloween Special #4
Considering the time of year, and the fact that @jeunebug brought it up, I am reviewing Uninvited for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This game popped up in the comments to my Halloween Special Number 2: Five Horror Titles Set in Mansions That Are Not Resident Evil article. Uninvited is an early horror themed adventure game that has no real blood and guts, no fast action, no zombies wanting to eat your brains, and no guns. What is left? Quite a bit of scares for those willing to traverse the halls of this old mansion.
You are controlling an unnamed character that has just been in a terrible car accident. Your older sister (NES version here folks) is missing and you are not sure if she is even alive right now. Shoot, you cannot even remember your own name now. As you exit the wrecked car you notice the old mansion which appears to be your only hope of help. That is easily setup with the fact that your car blows up once you exit it – no turning back now. Surely your missing sister entered the mansion looking for help since you were knocked out in the wreck. Right? You had better hope so because that is your only choice now.
If you are familiar with any of the other games that shared this engine on the Nintendo Entertainment System then you will be right at home with Uninvited. Those other games are Shadowgate and Déjà vu (though the sequel never saw release on the NES). All of these games are available on Steam for a pretty decent price.
The old mansion is comprised of two floors and a tower (for whatever reason) and some buildings in the backyard. Everything is quite old and dilapidated, or at least that is what it supposed to look like. On the NES everything is quite pristine and clean though – kind of a juxtaposition going on there. Anyhow, you are not going to get around this mansion without using your wits to figure things out.
Some of the puzzles are absolutely off the wall and will require exploration to figure out the solution based on reading scrolls and diary entries you find throughout the game. Item descriptions and such had to be changed from the PC versions which has resulted in some detailed names as “spray” and “pendant” showing up in your inventory. Thanks guys. Tremendous help there.
Uninvited does what it needs to do quite well and that is produce a desolate environment that emits an immense sense of despair and death – if not decay in the game world. I just can’t get over how everything in the NES version is just “new” looking in a mansion that is supposed to be run down and desolate. It is like the owners simply ran to town to get help for this idiot that crashed in their front yard or something.
The control system in Uninvited is just like that in Déjà Vu and Shadowgate. You are presented with a quarter of the screen size window displaying the game world (there are some awesome 80’s music video screen transitions to boot). To the right of the game world window is a list of items in your inventory and below that is the action area. The action area will change, depending on what is needed at the time, from text scrolling by detailing your situation and what you are facing back to your action menu. The action menu features an active overview map of the current room with dots for exits from that room, to the right is a list of words like EXAM, OPEN, HIT, SPEAK, and more. Clicking these words will let you interact with the game world.
To open a door, you must first select OPEN then either click on the door in the overview map or in the game window (the overview map is easier to hit). Want to go through that door you just opened? You must select MOVE then click that door again. To say this interface is cumbersome is beyond true. As you play Uninvited you will probably forget the annoyance factor and start to understand the nuances of this control scheme (remember, the Nintendo NES does not have a mouse attachment as Nintendo fought vehemently to prove it was NOT a computer, at least in the USA). If you are into these types of games then mastering the control scheme of one of the three that came to the NES makes the others much easier to enjoy - even non “Macventures” games like Maniac Mansion share a similar control scheme so there is that to look forward to (hmm, another review…?).
Maniac Mansion for the Nintendo Entertainment System
I have not played the computer version of Uninvited very much but judging by the shots on Steam, it looks much more detailed and gruesome than what Nintendo would allow on the NES at the time (this was many years before the whole “Play it Loud” campaign started – i.e., Nintendo realizing they would lose money be being squeaky clean).
When I was younger I looked at titles like Uninvited, Shadowgate, and Déjà vu and thought how cool it would be if they continue this genre. Even expand on it. Imagine if they had done Total Recall on the NES in this style? Alas, we only got three entries using this game engine and all three are unique adventures to each other (and unique against other NES games). If you are interested in giving Uninvited on the NES a try then get it on eBay or Amazon
or Amazon