LIMBO
Available Platform: Xbox LIVE Arcade
Developer: Playdead
Publisher: Xbox LIVE Arcade
Release Date: July 21, 2010
Official website: www.limbogame.org
Review summary:
For the past 3 years Microsoft’s XBLA Summer of Arcade series has consistently raised the bar for not just downloadable games, but gaming as a whole, offering up some of the best games of the entire year for less than $20 a pop. The trail of excellence continues right out of the gate this year with Limbo, from developer Playdead.
Star Rating:
5 out of 5
LIMBO review
Limbo is at its heart a shining example of “less is more.” Using a two-toned black and white color scheme, without dialogue and without story (you’re told, only in text outside the game, that it’s the story of a boy’s search for his sister in limbo). With only a jump and an action button at your disposal to interact with the world around you, the designers have clearly set out with a minimalist tone in mind. Even the pause screen is bare bones and unobtrusive. It’s very alluring. But of course, all of this would be for naught if there wasn’t an actual game underneath to take advantage of this core concept, and thankfully, there most certainly is.
The game itself is a puzzle platformer at first glance not too unlike Braid (but certainly VERY different in terms of the types of puzzles). By the third or fourth puzzle I was already setting the controller down, sitting back and just thinking, trying to figure out what I wasn’t seeing. And of course every time I did figure it out, it was a deeply satisfying “aha!” moment that you turn to these types of games for. Some puzzles are deceptively simple, others require a bit more thought and effort, but they are all entirely fair and can be solved with just a bit of thought, and perhaps just a handful of violent, gruesome deaths.
If I have one complaint about the game, it’s that it is perhaps a bit disjointed aesthetically. The game starts off with a very distinct look and feel. It’s quiet, dark and lonely. It’s also organic with life, however sad, living all around you – and there’s more of this desperation lying in the background. Within the first few minutes you start to feel and know this place. Then about halfway through the game the world shifts to a much more empty, generic video game world (think gears, pits and moving platforms), which was a disappointing change.
Limbo takes somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 4 hours to complete, which some may describe as short, but I’d go ahead and describe as “perfect.” The entire playthrough took me the better part of an afternoon, and what a delightful afternoon that was. If you play games because you are seeking new and unique experiences that are not only visually alluring and entertaining, but also give you a chance to exercise a part of your brain you don’t use very often (the quirky puzzle-solving cortex), then I cannot recommend this game highly enough.
###
LIMBO gameplay trailer:
