Limbo Review
It starts with shot of the bleak landscape of a forest. A world that is black and white with shades of grey. After a moment a pair of eyes flicker open and a boy rises up out of the grass to begin his arduous journey of running to the right. This is how Limbo, the first game of this year’s Summer of Arcade, opens up. And that’s all the game really gives you to go on at the start. Throughout the rest of the game it drips out little hints behind what’s going on in the story, but even by the end you’ll be left trying to puzzle out what Limbo was about.
Anyone that isn’t a fan of artsy games will want to steer clear of Limbo. It takes itself very seriously, and while it isn’t nearly as pretentious as something like Braid, it still hits similar notes and will probably be the art game darling of the year. But being someone that does enjoy the occasional art house game, Limbo was perfect for me.
But aside from questions and ambiguity in the games plot which might not mesh with the majority of the people on Xbox Live, the actual game part is really great and simple. Limbo only uses 2 buttons. Press “A” to jump and “B” to grab objects, and that’s it. With that Play Dead, the games developer, build a number of great puzzles that will challenge your wits, but personally no challenge was ever too difficult and never too frustrating.
I always did enjoy sailing
This might be the first time I’ve felt that a downloadable game might have had the best graphics of any game this year. The incredibly moody silhouette world creates tension as if it was no difficult thing to do at all. The lack of any real music only adds to it. Even the most simple scenes are incredibly striking and memorable.
Be prepared to die, a lot, while playing Limbo, and brutally too. Bear traps, pits, falling rocks and a particularly persistent giant spider will result in your death many times. Most of the traps and puzzles are trial and error. You’ll almost never manage to get out of the way the first time. And sometimes not the second, third or fourth either. But the game does a great job of having checkpoints often enough to make death barely an inconvenience.
As someone with a slight fear of spiders, this chase was probably a little more frightening than it should of been.
I know an adventure through a depressing world that continually drives home the fact that their is no hope isn’t necessarily the thing that mos people look for in their games but in this case I think it’s worth a shot.
Grade: A
Check out http://www.thewarpzone.wordpress.com
