Review
Release Date: 07.21.2010
Platform:
Xbox Live ArcadeDeveloper:
PlaydeadPublisher:
PlaydeadReviewed by
Richard Brownell on 8.1.2010
I remember seeing Limbo for the first time years ago. It was a video showing a boy jumping through a mysterious black and white environment. I think it was part of a demo reel of several indie games. I thought to myself, "I love the way that game looks. It's too bad it may never come out or will be lost in the indie scene only to be played by people who follow the indie games scene." Thankfully, Playdead, the developer, was able to finish Limbo and bring it to the masses via Microsoft's Summer of Arcade.
I love stylistic artsy games. Do you? If so, you may as well stop reading this review and go download Limbo right now. Limbo is one of those games, like Flower, like Shadow of the Colossus, like Jet Set Radio, where the experience of the game is more important than the mechanics. In Limbo, you play a boy who can walk, jump, and occasionally interact with objects. It would map perfectly to an NES controller. And adding any extra buttons to this game would only taint the experience.
The environment of Limbo is perfect. The boy you play is traveling through Limbo to find his lost sister. If I hadn't read the description of the game, I wouldn't have known this and you almost don't need to know. When you start the game, you see a boy lying on the ground. The boy is just a silhouette. The ground, too, is just a silhouette, as is everything in the foreground. The background is made up of more silhouettes, but these are gray, usually shrouded in mist. The creators use blurring effects to add an amazing feeling of depth to the world without resorting to 3D graphics.
Everything in the world of Limbo moves in a lifelike way. The boy is especially perfect, but at no point did I feel like a piece of the world was done halfway. From the forests to the factory, it's as if the world of Limbo has a life of its own. You can almost feel it breathing as you play. Grass sways, ladders creek, critters scurry around. It's breathtakingly moody.
And Limbo is not a pleasant place. It's macabre without being disgusting, though the boy has many, likely hundreds, of ways of dying. The silhouette graphics prevent anything from being too gross. They also give Limbo a style all its own. There are artists and movie makers I'm tempted to make comparisons to, but I don't need to. Watch a trailer and look at screens and judge the art style for yourself.
The boy faces many obstacles on his path to find his sister. Limbo is a platforming puzzle game. Some may compare it to Braid though Braid's puzzles were all focused around the concept of time. Limbo has puzzles that remind me of old PC adventure games. Sometimes you need to figure out whether to move the crate or hit the switch first. Other times when sliding down a steep hill, you need to know when to jump so you won't land in a pit of spikes. In almost every puzzle, you can die. Later on in the game, timing plays a big aspect in puzzle solving. The puzzles can get pretty tricky and you'll be tempted to look up solutions online. But they are solvable with a fair amount of thought, particularly if you get a friend to help you play. And the puzzles have many common elements, so thinking of how you solved a recent puzzle may help you solve the next one.
Some people judge the value of a game based on its length. Don't be that guy. Limbo can be completed in a few hours the first time through. Once you know the puzzles, its' probably shorter than your average kids movie. But every moment of Limbo's few hours was an enjoyable, albeit mildly terrifying, experience. It leaves you wanting more but also fulfilled.
The ending of Limbo is worth noting. I won't spoil it; I will only say to make sure you reach the end. While some stories' endings make you say, "That's cool, so what's next?", Limbo will make you think and talk about the ending. As many on the internet are already saying, what does it mean?
