Limbo

The Main Menu screen has little to tell and the game tell even less as you see the little boy awake from a slumber alone in the woods. There's no word of why he is there or how he ended up there. There's only one thing to do, walk to the right and stay ahead to survive the world that is Limbo.  The little there is to know is told through the XboxLive description that the boy is looking for his sister, but for all I care he's trying to get out of the woods alive. I sure as hell had no interest in staying in one place for too long when the boy's greeted by bear traps, Lord of The flies like children and first and foremost, an   enormous spider.  
 

Each hazard in themselves are not very scary, even for me who's an arachnophobic. But the overall danger and how each challenge is put together with eery  music that only slip in once in a while to highlight the horror made me sit with a chill down my spine. Not only how gruesome the traps are and how a spider use his legs to try and stab you. But also how incredibly violently the boy perishes if I don't react quickly enough to them. 
 
Luckily the boys at Playdead have done good work with the controls and even if all you can do is run, jump and pull, they are exceptionally responsive and I could never blame the controls for the deaths. 
 

The question that brewed in my mind was; is it just a gameplay reason as to how often the boy can die and just pop up two meters back again to try again, or could there be more to it? What exactly is the reason he's running to the right? And why is everything out to get him?
 
The visual style adds a lot to this when the darkness comes down over you and the shadows either running away from or after you. You really feel joy when finding sunlight and the rain offers a calm atmosphere I've rarely found in a game.
 
All in all I was incredibly pleased with this game and I can't even foul it for the amount of hours per buck. Had it been any longer, it would have become bland and boring even if they had managed to figure out continued amounts of puzzles to do. It's just a healthy amount of Limbo.
 
The ending left me more pleased than what most seem to have taken it, seeing the game itself as the challenge of a lost soul and the ending being the goal that explains what we see in the Main Menu screen... a truth that left me with a knot in my stomach. Not often a game leaves me with that feeling.
 
Visuals: 5 / 5
Sound: 5 / 5
Gameplay: 5 / 5
 
Overall 5 / 5
Limbo is a ride that constantly throw you bizarre twists in the trip to the end. A ride that leave you sitting with the controller in your hand, wondering what just happened. A ride that force you to look at more than just the obvious things.