Limbo News

After reading the article Most Popular Video Games Are Dumb. Can We Stop Apologizing for Them Now?, I came to formulate my own opinion on the matter that games need to be more thought provoking and emotional then what the big-budget games are. I feel the article strictly the demands that all games do this, and while I'm one who definitely prefers the brilliance of Braid or Fez over almost anything else, I feel this isn't realistic in anyway. I also think that I can enjoy a game like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which while isn't nearly as thought provoking as Limbo, I still enjoyed. Clearly, there are two types of games now in this post-Braid world, games that are just fun toys, and those that are intelligent pieces of art. I think there is room for both in this world, not one or the other. Which is what probably is the biggest beef behind this article, though it never got around to quite saying it, or maybe Taylor Clark never realized it.

Let's take a look at what medium gaming is commonly compared to, movies, and draw an analogy. You see, a movie like The Artistis a very intelligently created, thought provoking movie, and won the Oscar for best picture. Now, while it's a great movie, it was seen be a very small group of people, and only grossed $44 million , while a less intelligent movie like The Expendables appealed to a much wider audience, and grossed $266 million. There's two points I want to draw in this comparison.

The first is that the greatest assumption made in the Clark's article is that vast majority of humans are smart. That they like putting effort into interpreting stories and enjoy the emotional and thought provoking parts. My brother, who has played Braid all the way through, didn't give a shit about the ending, which he wouldn't even made it to without my help, and indeed, if I can make heuristic assumption, the vast majority people wouldn't. Yet, when it comes to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, my brother just loves how "cool" the executions are in the game, and how "cool" the armor looks. He throughly enjoyed the game, and so did I, but for me, looking "cool" isn't a huge part of a game, but for everyone else, the vast majority of everyone else, it is. I commonly tell people that gaming hasn't grown up. That we're stuck in this "kill and bleed" adolescent part of the maturity of the gaming industry, but the point is that humanity really doesn't grow up beyond this either. It makes business sense for the industry to make games the appeal to this branch of people, but they also appeal to anyone. They are good. They will always be around, and they will always make big money and be popular.

But the problem I have, and what we don't mirror from the movie industry at all (at least until Journey), is that the intelligent, thought provoking games don't get funded by big studios. The Artist had a budget of 15 million dollars, which I don't think it got out of pocket. Meanwhile, Braid was funded with $200,000 that Johnathan Blow had to struggle to get together to even make his game. This is the big difference and the problem I feel that a lot of people have with the gaming industry. The Artist can get funding from major studios to make a thought provoking film, but Braid, Fez, Limbo, and the like couldn't get funding from let's say EA or Activision to make a thought provoking game. Thought provoking games need a place in the industry. They need a piece of the financial pie, even though they are being made without it, and I think that's the point and plea behind Clark's article, and I agree.

And maybe that day will come, but we still have a lot of growing up to do as an industry, and it's still a relativity young one. Given time, I think we'll mature into what the movie industry is (though hopefully not COMPLETELY what the movie industry is), and we'll have a place for thought provoking, intelligent, and artistic games. I think right now though, we're still transitioning to that.

This turned into a bit of an essay quickly, my congrats if you get to the end.....

Pretentious? Moi?

The Quick Look for Fez provoked a familiar reaction from portions of the gaming community. Although there were some positive or interested voices a small majority of comments were damning of a release they deemed ‘the game de jour for indie devs looking for wank material’ or another game hyped by ‘pretentious assholes. ’ While some of this distaste can be explained by people’s aversion to Phil Fish, its expression feels like a gag reflex many have toward games which appear arty and I wondered why, and if this was justified in any way.

Each time a game comes out which looks different, asks unusual questions of gamers or tries to include themes and ideas outside of gaming’s usual milieu it seems to antagonise certain sections of the community. This response would be understandable if it was a considered reaction to psuedry, or shallowness masquerading as insight, but generally, and especially it seems in the case of Fez, this is just a gut reaction rather than serious criticism. The forums seemed desperate to deride Fez, calling it boring, simple, ‘is that all there is’ ran one quote, another, ‘it looks like a basic New Grounds game.’ Clearly to anyone who has played Fez or even listened to the excellent discussion on this week’s Bombcast this is not the case. While not being to everyone’s taste, it is obvious the game is seriously complex and creates a world of codes and symbols for the player to puzzle over. The meat of the game is much more than jumping, rotating and collecting.

Emperor’s New Clothes?

It’s not just Fez, Braid and Limbo are two other games which have suffered sniping over their degree of pretentiousness and have been derided for attempts to be profound. Why do they provoke these reactions? Are the detractors right and these games are the emperors new clothes, naked of gameplay and fun, enjoyed by deluded audiences desperate to be hip, or are there a section of gamers scared of games which innovate outside of basic gameplay and graphics power.

A Typical Indie Dev Team

The answer, I think, is somewhere in between. I think there certainly are a section of gamers who feel threatened by people being or trying to be thoughtful and intelligent. These are the same people who would pick on the clever kid at school or pride themselves on never having read a book, but I think there is more to this than mere boorishness and something else is disturbing those who scorn fashionable indie games.

I think the issue is related to games’ youth as a pastime, and what the pastime entails. The clue is in the name – games – these are things which are supposed to be fun and enjoyable and for most people fun is something simple, almost thoughtless. Games are a way of escaping from the pressures of life, a release from being judged, tested, assessed and challenged. In gaming you can find release from your perceived intellectual or social failures and be who you want, it is a safe zone where preference confers no real intellectual caché. If you prefer Quake over Team Fortress or Halo over Call of Duty your taste or skill might be criticised but they are not choices which divide audiences into sophisticates and plebs, just different flavours of simple fun. However if your taste is for Hollywood blockbusters and Dan Brown novels there will always be someone, probably with a funny haircut and thrift store clothes, looking down their nose at you. The uniformity of gaming reviews in comparison to cinema reviews bares this out. In gaming blockbuster games get big sales and 5 and 4 stars uniformly, but film critics tend to sneer at the big Hollywood releases even as the public pack out the picture houses. Gaming’s short history has meant that up till now it has avoided this split into Arthouse and Mainstream or Literature and Genre Fiction. I think some members of the community, whose taste falls in the latter of these categories fear this distinction coming to gaming and being left among the lumpen once again. This may not be a conscious motive as they deride the lastest indie sensation but I think it is there, lurking at the back of their minds.

Am I a Game?

This is a shame because the two can exist side by side, but I understand the fear that some people have that they are going to be left in the dumb half of culture constantly apologising for their lowbrow taste, that somehow their simple paradise of fun is going to be highjacked by arty types and sneering aesthetes. As one person wrote in comments to Patrick’s article on the Cambodia “not game” The Killer – ‘Games are meant to be a fun escape from the real world, I don’t play games to get a deep message.’

Too Much Hype

However it doesn’t follow that all criticism of this nature is invalid. I think the current state of the industry can starve games of intelligent thought (although there are exceptions among the AAA titles) and this can make the audience hankering after these experiences too eager to praise the next big thing. The expense of making Video Games is something that can work against the creative process, something pointed out by Peter Molyneux in his interview about the Molyjam with Patrick. He says,

.....when you’re making a title that is going to end up costing millions and millions, tens of millions of dollars, Patrick, you just cannot have that attitude of ,”Well, let’s just do it.” It’s all got to be meticulously and carefully planned and structured and thought through and discussed and that does take the creative energy out of it. It must, whether it be a triple A computer game or a film..

Looks like art, sounds like art, must be.....right?

The point here that he is making is that the size and cost of making games stifles their creativity. Designer’s ideas are always being filtered through different teams and focus groups and creative risks are avoided when large sums are at stake. This leaves us with a selection of titles which while fun may not really show us anything new outside of updating old gameplay ideas and boosting visuals. For the media and enthusiasts who play these games this can get boring and the anticipation for a game which looks innovative or striking can lead too quickly to hype and often this over inflates the importance of certain products. It is also dangerous to artistic or mistake distinctive style for depth and true conceptual innovation. Limbo is a game which got critics and bloggers frothing superlatives (it is currently running at 90 on Metacritic) but was this praise justified? Limbo is a beautiful looking game and a fun platform-puzzler and was thought a worthy candidate in the ‘can games be art’ discussion with much made of the themes supposedly contained in its mysterious narrative. Although I enjoyed the game immensely I thought its stylish black and white presentation and ambiguous story gave an illusion of depth and no real thought was provoked outside of its fun puzzles. Articles and discussions sprung up about what the game meant or what it was trying to say when to me it was just a series of different puzzle arenas connected by a unifying art style. I thought the ambiguity of meaning was actually an absence and while it is no real criticism to say Limbo was just a great looking and fun puzzler, that’s all it was.

So I can understand why some people get snarky about commentators cooing over the next interesting little gem but I also understand this sometimes misplaced enthusiasm is there. Video games are not filled with many spaces for quiet reflection and generally don’t leave you with too much to ponder outside of how to up your APM or kill ratio and now the audience has grown and expanded far outside the teenage male’s bedroom it is not surprising that there are group of gamers hungry for something thoughtful from their experiences. When you compare what videogames want to say about the world with what is being discussed in cinema or literature you realise how far they have to go before they can really reflect human experience with the same depth as these two artistic institutions.

I am not sure if Videogames will ever reach this point and I fully understand that there is a good portion of the community that don’t care if they do. However would also say that there is no reason for anyone to fear or deride those that try, it’s never a bad thing to think hard about your art or try to push it in weird and innovative directions, even if these experiments fail sometimes. The main thing we as consumers can do is make sure we are always using our critical faculties to distinguish the merely stylish from the truly visionary, and the updated from the innovative.

Naked chicks in wheelchairs, man.

(You know what that means: I Play Porn Games for the Story (and Porn).) Yes, your one-stop blog for all things video games, anime, mash-ups and boobies. This time, we're covering the one visual novel I've actually heard of: Katawa Shoujo. (Technically, that should be Katawa Na Shoujo, but I'm in no position to lecture others on their shit Japanese.) How did I come about this game? Well, one day, @LordXavierBritish (pictured here) decided to make a thread about how this game came out, and I decided to give the visual novel a try and jump into the awesome world of Katawa Shoujo.

So after a loading screen populated with incognito Chickenheads, the story proper begins. We see our protagonist Hisao Nakai waiting outside for no reason. At this point, the game creates a reason for him in the form of a girl. She asks him out, and he responds the only way he knows how: by having a heart attack. Unfortunately, it turns out that girls aren't too fond of near-death experiences they're not a part of, so Hisao spends a few months in the hospital before being sent off to Yamaku School (for the Katawa'd). It is here that Hisao is at his assholeiest. Now I could write a lot about why he's such an unlikable protagonist, but let's start things off slowly. First off, the guy is way too ready to invade the life of anything with a vagina in his school. Oh, it starts off innocent enough, as it's just him joining some club or activity or whatever to pass the time (even if that intrusive thing I mentioned earlier is more obvious with Rin (he has no interest in art, but ends up joining the art club, anyway) and Hanako (I have quite a few words about this one)), but give it a while. By the second act or so, he's gonna jam his way into whatever emotional problem he finds in a girl. What's that? Girl X (let's just say that it's Emi, because she seems the most prone to a Mega Man X situation) understandably wants to keep her emotional barriers? That's when Hisao tells the girl, "Fuck that! You tell me about the source of your emotional problems right now, you stuck up bitch!" (OK, the words aren't accurate, but the tone definitely is.) It gets especially bad with Leela look-alike Hanako, mainly because she usually feels obligated to up about her past, like Hisao is ready to punch her the moment she refuses. I know that part of this may be because it's a dating sim and all, but I still found myself yelling at him way too often for prying into their lives.

You know, the strange thing is that this looks a helluva lot like me. All you need to do is add a beard somewhere between "medieval-ass lord" and "19th century anarchist leader", and you have a pretty good idea of what I look like.

I guess the other problem I have with the guy is his stubborn inability to get over these girls' various disabilities. I'd recommend a drinking game based on how many times Hisao points out a girl's disability, but I think that would result in something very similar to the Kenji route (yes, the only other guy in the game gets his own route, and it isn't this). Regardless, Hisao just can't get past the various disabilities these girls have. I know what you're going to say: he's going to a new school, so it's gonna take time for him to adjust. I grant you that, but remember that I'm adjusting to all this, too, but I managed to do it better than him. It took me all of five seconds to stop thinking of Rin as "the girl with no arms" and move onto her as "the girl whose lungs are made of weed", and that was before I actually got to know her on her own damn route. (More on that later, though.) Hisao, on the other hand, still gets hung up on shit like this. At least early on, he spends a lot of time worrying about things like what words to use (probably shouldn't mention hearing around Shizune) or whether or not to ask the various girls about their disabilities. Do I even need to say anything? Yes? OK then: I found myself saying, "Jesus Christ. I'm absolute shit at talking to other people*,and I could do a better job of socializing with these girls than you." *(Combine Hanako's silence and isolation with Rin's "what the fuck" thought patterns and you have me.) But even ignoring that, he can't resist thinking dickish thoughts about these girls. Perfect example: at some random point in Scottish giant Lilly's route, Hisao finds himself amazed at how effortlessly she navigates the empty halls of Yamaku. Gee, what a goddamn surprise! Who would have thought that a girl who's been attending this school for longer than you would have little trouble finding her way around the damn place? But no. I guess her blindness trumps all. Dick.

But as much as I malign Hisao, I do love me the girls in this game. You see, unlike the judgmental prick that is Hisao, Katawa Shoujo doesn't really make a big deal about the Katawa part. It just introduces a girl's disability very briefly (well, as briefly as possible when Hisao's the narrator) before moving into some type of characterization, like bitch or 19th century girl or energetic slightly-less-bitch. Yes, I know, shallow (at least how I describe it), but give it time, because once you get into a girl's route, holy shit do things get dark. Is emotional baggage necessary for enrollment at Yamaku? Because every girl seems to have some. In fact, there's only one girl I can name who doesn't have severe psychological issues of any kind, and that's because she barely gets any development in the first place. (Granted, most girls don't get a lot of characterization outside their own route, but this girl in particular gets shafted the hardest. (Damn it, guys.)) Not that I can fault it too much for this approach; after all, how else would they make these characters so great in the first place? I don't know how they did it, but Four Leaf Studios managed to turn a girl with no arms into an actual person whom you can have feelings for. Do you understand how immensely important that is t the game? I doubt it. Not only does it make the story ultra powerful, but it contributes so much to the plot thematically. After all, what better way to show that these girls are actual people who aren't defined by their disabilities (despite what Hisao might think about it...asshole) than by convincing you of such? (Admittedly vague, but it works.) Hell, the story even managed to make a convincing case as to why Hanako deserves to be the developer's pet, even if she wasn't my favorite. Which girl did I like the most, you probably didn't ask? I'd say that my favorite route would have to be Rin's, for two reasons: she has a lot of room for legitimate growth as a character, and her problems aren't as cliched or contrived or fucking nonexistent as the other girls' are. Man, I loved that r-

Oh, and I should probably mention Miki. She's a strange character, to say the least. She has her own unique portrait, but you can't date her and she only gets a few scenes' worth of actual characterization. Shame, too, because look at how awesome she is.

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT! I don't love them in that way, you guys. Honest. In fact, the sex scenes can be kinda awkward. Usually, I'd say that it has something to do with it being a video game (what am I supposed to do with a boner when I'm trying to make the text move forward?), but this time, it's a story thing. Think about it: you've been developing these emotional attachments to these characters for three or four acts (the pattern seems to be "one or two sex scenes in the third act, another in the fourth to round things out"), so it's hard to get horny when the sex finally comes, especially if you were unlucky enough to get stuck with Misha. It's sort of like watching your friends fuck: it's weird enough as it is, and jerking off in the middle of things wouldn't improve it. Oh, and need I remind you that these are high school girls? If you're just playing this for the tits (hopefully mature ones), there are far more efficient ways to get nipples, like Google or YouTube or @ZombiePie (those hentai game pics had to go somewhere. Just sayin'.). Although that's not to say that I didn't enjoy the sex scenes; I just didn't enjoy them as some type of masturbatory aid. I mean, it's pretty hard to masturbate to a picture of just some titties or whatever. Yet that's what I like so much about the sex scenes: they only show what's necessary. This isn't some pander-y bullshit that the developers threw in because they felt like it (except for Misha's sex scene, which kinda comes out of nowhere). There are some actual plot reasons behind Hisao fucking a girl in a wheelchair (it's to show that he's an inconsiderate asshole) or Hanako taking her clothes off for the protagonist (now that I've got the context out of the way...). OK, not all of the sex scenes are this important to the plot (again, Misha's is just there for whatever strange person wanted to see her naked), but my point is that some actual thought was put into these things.

As for the gameplay....what the shitting hell do you want me to say? There's not exactly a lot for me to comment on. You read a ton of text (which can oddly vary between something out of a novel and something out of a high school student's mouth), accidentally click a girl's boobs for two minutes, and occasionally make a choice. Is that what you want me to comment on? There's still not a lot to say about them. You click your choice and then move on with the story until another choice presents itself. Your early choices affect which girl you get to see naked (obviously), but it's not exactly clear how your choices are gonna play out, if you're trying to go after a specific girl. For example, how am I supposed to know that taking the offensive in a game of Risk allows me to go out with Shizune? I guess that missing scenes in the library are meant to give you that vague sense of direction, but it could be a little clearer. Eventually, though, you find yourself dating a girl, helping her overcome her emotional problems (I probably should have mentioned earlier that this is something else I don't like about Hisao, but I'm willing to put up with it for the sake of character development), and then moving onto another girl, abandoning that girl and her emotional baggage. I guess that's where the "game" part comes in, because I can't imagine this being a problem in any other medium. Again, it feels really insensitive to start a new route, knowing that, say, Emi's still gonna cry herself to sleep at night, or that Shizune will probably lead on OK life without many serious issues, all because you wanted to see Rin's boobs. Then again, I guess the only reason this would make you feel like an asshole (and it will) is because of how good it is at making these girls feel like actual people. You know what? After you've finished reading this, and after you've left a comment, go out and play this game. I don't care if you've already played it; go out and play it again, damn it.

Review Synopsis

• I don't know who I hate more: Hisao Nakai, or Steve Burnside. OK, it's Steve. It wasn't even fucking close.
• Regardless, I love the shit out of these girls...
• ...but not in that way, you effing perverts.

Wait, there's one last thing I have to address before closing this portion of the blog: all 277 images I've taken of this game (not counting the Chickenhead thing from before, of course), spread across 182.67 MB. That definitely sounds like a lot, but to put things in perspective, I've only taken 183 images of Temple of Elemental Evil, a game whose progress I pain-stakingly transcribed over the course of eight blogs. But are there any patterns to be found in my insane image taking habits? Let's examine as I rank the girls (and Kenji, oddly enough) by how many pictures they got:

• Oddly enough, there's a tie for first place between Shizune and Hanako with 68 images each. I spent most of my Hanako pictures simply yelling at Hisao for being the intrusive asshole that he is toward the one girl who SHOULDN'T be intruded upon, but my Shizune pictures are spread out a bit more evenly. Yes, I still yell at Hisao for his cuntly ways (quite literally), but I also indulged in some deaf jokes (can somebody explain how you laugh without making noise?), Shizune's funny faces, and the weird characters to be found in her route.
• Next up is a girl between Shizune and Hanako, in a way (that's not at all sexual, you goddamn pervert): Lilly, with 65 images. Like Shizune, a lot of it is Hisao being an asshole, blind....OK, not jokes, but Hisao being an asshole about Lilly being blind (or disabled, really), and some truly odd gender issues. (You thought it was Akira, didn't you? Turns out Scottish girls all wish they had dicks.)
• After these three girls, we see a sharp decline in the number of pictures. Emi lags far behind the competition with only 28 images to her name. I don't know if I've mentioned this before (I had to type this part up first, because there's no way you can drop about 300 images on a site and not explain yourself), but Emi was my first route, so I wasn't exactly used to the "capture every goddamn thing" mentality that I adopted in my final routes. (See if you can guess which ones those were.) Because of this, I mostly took reaction shot pictures that I could use in the forums. However, this was where I discovered how many pictures I was taking, so I decided to turn it into a game, of sorts: for each picture, write the title in all caps to highlight how much of a stalker Hiaso is when in a relationship. It didn't take long for that stalker mentality to convert itself into pure anger.
• Wait, Act 1? That's not a girl. Regardless, the nebulous period between never having played the game and choosing which teenage girl you want to fuck managed to net 20 images. Again, I had not gotten into the rhythm of hitting Print Screen every time (did you think JPEGs could really eat up that much memory?), so most of these are simple reaction shots and forum weapons. Don't ever make me use this.
• Rin, sadly, only got 20 pictures, but surprisingly, none of them used the word "fuck" (Effing A doesn't count). (This will make sense in a bit.) I abstained from doing so because I don't want to know what Nomiya does when he hears that word. (It's not uncommon for his pictures to end with scared shock.)
• Kenji comes in at dead last with only six images to his name. Then again, that's limited to about a fifth of an act, because any more Kenji would be too much Kenji. Can you handle that much Kenji? Can anybody?
• Finally, in the titles of my images, 39.5 of them were in all caps (here's the .5), and 22 of them used the word "fuck" in some fashion. Never before have I been so angry at a game I genuinely love so damn much. Unsurprisingly, Hanako takes the majority in both categories, because FUCK YOU HISAO, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU TO TREAT HER THE WAY YOU TREATED HER YOU FUCKING INVASIVE, FUCKING DEMEANING PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!!!!! *calms down* And that's Katawa Shoujo, ladies and gents.

Of course, this couldn't be I Play Porn Games for the Story (and Porn) without a random mash-up!

Sometimes, I play games without anime titties.

(It's not often, though.) In fact, there's a good chance that while you're reading this sentence, I'm playing Skyward Sword or Tear Ring Saga or something else. But this blog isn't about those; instead, it's about random indie platformer LIMBO. Wait, I thought I couldn't run this game. What the hell gives? Well, through the magic power of magic, I was able to beat the hell out of the game, seeing the part of the game that comes after the middle. At some point, though, I should probably mention that the game is pretty decent.

Although damn if it takes its sweet-ass time getting there. Hell, it takes about all of the game alone to figure out just what you're supposed to do, and even then, it's not very clear. Apparently, the game's about a boy-shaped shadow trying to find a girl....or humanity...or something. It doesn't really go into detail, mainly because it's a silent game. Combine this with the stark black and white footage, and it's like a silent movie. The only difference is that instead of Alfred E. Moonman getting a rocket to the eye, LIMBO focuses more on a bleak atmosphere. Unfortunately, at least in the beginning, "bleak" tends to mean "ungodly boring." I don't even know how to describe such a nondescript feeling. It just is. I'd say something especially nasty about it, but it's not even the type of atmosphere that teases out an emotional response...at first. Trust me, though: stick through it. Stick through those first few boring levels (probably not the best way to say that, given that the game doesn't really tell you where levels cut off), because things eventually become entertaining. Wait, did I say "entertaining"? I meant "cartoonishly dark." I don't know how to explain it, but just about everything around you looks like it wants to kill you as soon as possible. (More on that in a minute, though.) Maybe it's the black and white thing from before, or how half the objects in the game are sharp, twisted monsters, but holy hell, does it work. I struggle to think of anything that gets away with anything as sick as this, but that may be because I'm incredibly lazy.

Wait, is this Saira all over again? Am I gonna have to hop from planet to planet just to find my boyfriend or whatever? (I wanted a picture of the brain slug portions, but it seems that there aren't any on the site, possibly because they suck so hard that nobody wanted to capture them.)

You know what helps this dark, malevolent atmosphere? Death. Tons and tons of death over the course of the game (assuming that you're not the type of person who can predict the future and somehow avert it simultaneously). Oddly enough, though, it actually gets really creative with just how many ways you'll die. Push a button (or don't)? Dead. Fail to climb off a rope in time? Impaled on a spike (which usually results in death). Succeed in climbing a rope? Bear trap. Finish the game? Dead. I wouldn't be surprised if you jumped around each part of the game like an asshole just searching for all the cool ways to die. Granted, that would destroy any semblance of atmosphere the game once had, but I'm willing to overlook that, given how much the deaths add to the atmosphere. After all, the world wouldn't feel so threatening if things couldn't kill you. It forces you to be suspicious of every little goddamn thing, since even the floor can kill you. It's like I Wanna Be the Guy, only more purposeful and enjoyable. Unfortunately, going all I Wanna Be the Guy throughout the game does have its downsides, like it being I Wanna Be the Guy for much of the game. I know that I said that I love how creative it can be with the deaths and everything, but sometimes, I want to progress through the goddamn game, and dying a ton doesn't exactly help that. It only gets worse when a lot of the deaths are trial-and-error shit you have no way of knowing about until it kills you (I'd call it a double-edged blade, but I'm afraid that sword would kill me as soon as I finish this line), or when you discover that you can't skip a death ani-

Fuck. I suddenly remembered something. I forgot to explain what type of game this is (I seem to have a problem with this). Like every goddamn indie game in existence (I think Johnathan Blow decreed it law of the land), it's a puzzle platformer. However, unlike a lot of indie games (Super Meat Boy, VVVVVV, I guess Plok (I think), etc.), LIMBO's platforming isn't very good, and there's only one reason for it: the controls. I'd say that I've never seen anything so sluggish, but that would be forgetting my last blog. Regardless, there does seem to be a delay in the controls, which wouldn't be so bad if timing wasn't so damn important. I know that I said that I like the deaths in this game, but there's a limit to how many times a person can die. Fortunately, there's another part to this puzzle platformer that makes up for all the mean things I said before, and it doesn't involve platforming: puzzles! Turns out that these are actually pretty cool. Now remember earlier, when I said that you have to observe the hell out of the world to figure out how to survive? Well, that leads to some awesome puzzles. I could go off on a tangent about all the things I like about the puzzles, such as their creativity or how few of them involve brain slugs, but for brevity's sake, I'll just limit it to how contained all the puzzles are. I know that sounds weird, but hear me out: the solution to just about every single riddle can be found in the world itself. No need to yell at the game for making you hunt down a walkthrough on the first day; just you looking at black & white stuff and using your tiny brain to figure things out. Granted, there are those stupid trial-and-error puzzles I mentioned before, but the other puzzles are cool enough to make up for that crap. Besides, quite a few of those are the types of puzzles that thrive on you being a speed freak who wants to blast through the game, so it's hard to hold that against the game.

Review Synopsis

• Man, this is a dark game, and yes, I mean it both ways.
• You cannot escape death, nor can you skip it if you've seen it already.
• Something something puzzles are awesome.
• Wait, why is this blog so mean-spirited, again?

I can't decide how I feel right now. I accomplished one of my weekend goals and finished Limbo last night. The problem is, I just can't come to terms with how it all turned out. I feel like I just read through a tale of two games. The first half is an intriguing adventure puzzler with some interesting scares and beautiful art style. The second half turns into an action platformer with awkward controls. So what happened?

Sometimes dark and disturbing...

In the recent Dead Island QL, Brad and Patrick were talking about how some designers seem completely unaware of what makes their game great. Nowhere is this truer than in Limbo. For me, this game is all about atmosphere, not action. When the game began I felt cold, alone, and confused. There was no direction and no hope, not even a splash of color to lift the player from the depths. If that one sentence is your introduction to the game, you would be forgiven for thinking it a terrible experience. But it's not; terror can be the most engaging and immersive facet of humanity. I really like the idea that I can be transported somewhere by a lack of stimulus as opposed to a picture perfect recreation of some fantastical place.

...yet always beautiful.

The gameplay begins along that same less-is-more ideology with only two action buttons. Trial and error is the name of the game, but that is to be expected. Just as in our world, the darkness permeates dangerous places and one false step means an early grave. Puzzles abound and the solutions are not always governed by the limitations we encounter on a daily basis. That being said, the abstract is never far from the logical and reason prevails with enough effort. If the game continued this way, it would be a masterpiece. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse about halfway through with too much jumping, pushing, pulling, and timing-based action. It's not that the game becomes overly hard (it never does), instead, it just becomes less fun. When the boy is being dismembered by a spinning saw blade repeatedly, the fear of death that had once been overwhelming becomes absent. The tension is gone.

I pushed through and finished the game, but it left a sour taste in my mouth. As excited as I am for the developers' next project, I can't help thinking of what could have been. Limbo remains an interesting game and has a fantastic first half, but beware the tonal downshift that comes with victory.

So I bought Limbo yesterday, and I'm kind of liking it. Truth be told, I actually have a love-hate thing going on with the game, it's great when it's doing it's own unique thing but occasionally it goes for traditional puzzle trapping. The game's unique spots seem to be how it blends puzzles with survial aspects almost seemingly. The best puzzles in the game you don't even realize are puzzles. Take for example an early one where two bear traps fly at you, the soloution involves moving your character at just the right time, just the right way in order to dodge them. These puzzles are fast, fun and keep you moving. On the other hand there are more traditional puzzles that lock you into a room and involve placing blocks just so. These puzzles feel out of place in this game slow down the pacing and just aren't fun. The game also seems fond of dropping egg parasites on your head making it so they can only move one way, these sections also feel out of place, and seem like a crutch for "we couldn't think of anything cool for this section so here's this". So far it looks like I'll be pressing onward with this. Hopefully the game keeps doing what it does best more, while doing the other stuff less.

Welcome to "Week in Review," where I summarize what went down this last week on Nathan Vs. Video Games, my attempt to review every single game I've ever played. Yeah. It's gonna take a while (especially since I'm still playing games currently).

I started off by trying to just do one game a day, but soon realized that would mean I'd be somewhere around the age of 50 by the time I finished. So now I'm doing two a day, with the possibility of speeding it up once I finish with the current novel I'm writing. I'm going to try and do one retro game and one modern game a day, though I make no promises to me following this system with exactness.

This week I reviewed 16 games, putting the total reviewed at 21. Not a bad start, all things considered.

Here are the links to these reviews with my blurb scores following.

Viking: Battle for Asgard - 2 / 5 Stars

Rayman: Origins - 5 / 5 Stars

Limbo - 4 / 5 Stars

3-D World Runner - 4 / 5 Stars

Lost Odyssey - 4 / 5 Stars

Legendary Wings - 4 / 5 Stars

The Binding of Isaac - 5 / 5 Stars

Parasite Eve - 4 / 5 Stars

Metro 2033 - 3 / 5 Stars

Protect Me Knight - 5 / 5 Stars

Resident Evil 5 - 3 / 5 Stars

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - 1 / 5 Stars

PowerGig: Rise of the SixString - 0 / 5 Stars

The Rise of the Argonauts - 4 / 5 Stars

To The Moon - 3 / 5 Stars

Dead Space - 5 / 5 Stars

So far I've been mostly reviewing either Xbox 360 or PC games, which makes sense since those are probably the systems I've played the most on (except I should probably add the PS2 and SNES as close runners-up). This week I will try to get more SNES and PS2 reviews for you, with plans for Earthworm Jim, Persona 3: FES, and others already in the works.

Also expect a massive review of Nier one of these days, though it might get an entire day to itself considering how long it will end up being.

Thanks for reading, and please share! I might also try to compile a list of every game I plan to review for next week (hint: it'll be massive) so I can directly tick off reviews and you can watch my slow progress to the end.

Have a great week!

Limbo got me decently damp....

I know I'm a little late to the party but I recently fired up Limbo and I have to say, that game is pretty chilling. As many of you know, I'm one to prefer a more...Japanese XXX...art style...I still thought it was really well done. Did anyone else get the feeling that it has been set up to have a much bigger sequel (Portal 1 -> Portal 2)? Did that get announced? Is that already a thing? Am I brain dead? My apologies if I am...

I hate 3D movies/games more than the memories of my step dad!

Imagine this but three dimensional!

Why does it have to be like this? Why should I have to sit in a theater or on my couch with fucking shades on, all so I can see the jugs of Kathy Bates flying at my dome!? I already have enough self esteem issues with my minor case of elephantiasis and facial scars! It's all so ridiculous and ruining first dates! Dave, if you're reading this, please still find my inner beauty!

I really want it to just be some fad that jizzes out but it doesn't seem to be the case. They just won't let up with it and it makes me so sad.

How do you guys feel about 3D? If you're some fuck who likes it, please explain it to me...

I'm bringing my toaster to the bath tub if you don't follow me!

I'm dying for followers! Don't you love me? After all I have done for you and THIS IS HOW YOU FUCK ME OVER!?

Hit me up! :-) <3

P.S

Happy new year to all of you...I...I love you...