Uncanney Valley

I'm not sure how long this has been out there, but I just found this trolling reddit: Lifelike animation heralds new era for ocmputer games

Putting aside technical considerations, it is very impressive. Still not quite right but it's not nearly as creepy as other things I've seen try to climb their way out of the uncanney valley.

Here's the thing: whenever I see a game with nice looking characters, I tend to think "that looked fantastic"... and then I cease caring after a few seconds. (Seconds, not minutes). It's cool, but unless your game happens to be about reading faces (why not? that could be fun if done well) it's a lot of extraneous stuff that usually doesn't have anything to do with what makes the core of a game fun. Usually I can anger whoever I want in a game with no repurcussions, so reading the subtle nuances of just how ticked off they are might be fun, but it doesn't really do a lot for me.

Think of how immersive tetris is -- do you think it'd be more immersive with a story and cutscenes of General Block talking really realistically?

(It would be really neat to see some games that explore social dynamics with the use of body language. I don't know if you need to climb through the uncanney valley to do it though.)