I always thought of the "uncanny valley" as when something looks so realistic that any slight detail of "non-realistic" aspects becomes an eyesore. Either way, I don't believe it'll be a problem. I for one, don't really care about photo realism, nor will I nitpick about the uncanny valley. Just bring me gameplay, art style and a solid technical effort.

Dude, all the movements were acted out in motion capture. I watched the "making of" special features of both games.

Yes, I had not seen the clip yet, so I was talking about my very personal experience, and really Uncanny Valley is a very subjective phenomenon (although Kant would say that EVERY phenomenon is subjective ).

I did mention eyes in Toy Story because it started this particular thing and after it those disturbing eyes found their way in lots other CG movies. Regarding skin, when it falls in the dreaded valley it looks like either covered with a bad, not heavy, but "flat" make-up, or worse belonging to an embalmed corpse.

@famousringo: now I've seen the clip and I find it creepy for the same reasons you mention.

One thing I should add: when you play a game, immersion made possible by good games adds realism in different ways from pure graphic accuracy, so I think that it should be possible to avoid Uncanny Valley.

 Yeah, the facial animations were the main problem.  The eyes stick out a bit to me at least.

Wow the Heavy Rain demo is awesome. I heard a game based on this technology just entered development. Want!!

More relistic graphics are good, they contribute to how real a gaming experience feels, combine real world graphics with complete motion sense and you have the ultimate game.

Heavy Rain is actually a 2 year old tech demo. The game itself will not have the characters, settings or level of detail as the tech demo.

The first real instance of Uncanny Valley seen in video games came about in sports titles just a few years ago (2005 I think). The players would animate very well, skin texture was decent but the eyes were dead. The didn't move, blink, etc... It gave the appearance of playing a bunch of zombies.

We're still another graphical generation away before it becomes a valid problem.

Ha! This makes me think of the episode of 30 Rock when Tracey wants to make a pornographic video game. Look, if you can get "immersed" in something like that without being creeped out, more power to you, windbane and whoever else thinks it's not a big deal.

Uncanny Valley effects some people more than others , but I think it effects everyone on a subconscious level to some degree. It's almost impossible for it not to be a little jarring if you're truly engrossed in a story, but some subtle inhuman visual or character flaw makes any empathy you could have, feel unnatural. It's not a matter of personal taste in visuals. It's a matter of becoming emotionally committed to a piece of work, only to have your suspension of disbelief constantly shattered. Thus, causing the matrix to collapse, because humans can't except things that do not sit with their views on reality.

I found disturbing both eyes and mouth, eyes looked as those of a down girl that had badly executed plastic surgery, the mouth looked catatonic.

OTOH I found body motion quite well done, she moved really like a very shy and clumsy amateur actress at an audition.