What began in the early 1990s as a simple graphic adventure game became one of the most infamous cases of video game plagiarism in modern video game history. The final product completely ripped assets from games such as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Thief 3, Painkiller, and even a scene from the Spawn movie. It's a sight to behold and after being reminded that it existed I just had to share it with those who may not know of it. You're in for a treat.

Limbo of the Lost began it's development for the Atari ST in the early 1990s by Steve Bovis and Tim Croucher under the name of Majestic Games. The game is about real life sea captain of the Mary Celeste, Benjamin Briggs. In 1872 the ship was found empty and the whereabouts of the captain and its crew remains a mystery to this day. The game puts him in Limbo and he must help Destiny in a war again Fate. After finishing a portion of the game the two began shopping it around to publishers but none would consider publishing it until the game was completed. After trying to expand their development team to finish the game it was eventually shelved as no one was interest in publishing games for the Atari ST anymore.

In 1995, with a new team member by the name of Laurence Francis, the game started back development. Though this time it was changed into a point and click adventure game (instead of a graphic text adventure) for the Amiga 500. Grandslam Entertainment agreed to publish the game for the Amiga 1200 and Amiga CD32 but this never happened since both platforms were no longer as popular and games were not being made for them.

So at this point the game was all but dead. It wasn't until 2003 when the team had learned how to use 3D development tools for the PC that the game was finally brought back and their dream of finishing it was at hand. And good god what a game they made.

In January of 2007 they released the first trailer:

After watching the trailer nothing really special jumps out. It looks horribly dated for a game that was released in late 2007 and that's about it. The game was published in late 2007 in the UK by G2 Games and by Tri Synergy in the US in June of 2008. It wasn't until video game website GamePlasma got a hold of it for review that the dark secrets of Limbo of the Lost were exposed to the world.

The game had stolen entire assets from many different major games. The majority of which came from Oblivion.

There is even some anecdotal evidence that maybe they even tried plagiarizing games back when it was being developed for the Amiga.

Full assets for these games weren't outright stolen. They are in fact just screenshots with the shoddily animated Briggs character superimposed over the 2D image. It's quite a site to behold.

Once the shit hit the fan and what they had done was exposed to the public (leading to a lengthy NeoGaf thread that dissected the game piece by piece exposing even more stolen assets) the developers immediately disassociated themselves from the game and denied all knowledge of how it came about and distribution for the game was immediately halted. They are quoted as saying:

"In response to the shocking notification that some alleged unauthorized copyrighted materials submitted by sources external to the development team have been found within the PC game Limbo of the Lost, we (the development team) have given our consent and full cooperation to both publishers who are recalling all units from all territories immediately. [...] To the best of our knowledge no one at Majestic, [European publisher] G2Games or [North American publisher Tri Synergy, Inc.] knew about this infringement and knowingly played any part in it."

So it just kind of just put itself there I guess? What baffles me is the fact that this game was shipped in the state it was in. And I'm not talking about the rampant plagiarism. The fact that a game this poorly made got a publisher and was put on shelves in the UK and North America in 2007, even for as short lived as that was, is just insane to me. You can even still buy the game from Amazon as I'm writing this. It even features "state of the art graphics", "immersive (being there) sound effects", and "each Level feels different in play".

Limbo of the Lost. Man, what a game. What a THING. I think the best way to end this retrospective on one of the weirdest games to have ever been released is to watch the ending. It may be a godawful horrible monstrosity of a game but it has one of the best endings in video game history.

Extra Things

GamePlasma's article that broke the story here

Rock, Paper, Shotgun's article on it here

An old magazine article previewing the game back in the 90s here and here

The dream (as I remember it ) began with myself lying in my bed. I then feel a sharp blade pierce my back (I sleep on my stomach) but since I'm in a dream I don't feel any pain and do not die. A person to my left who I never got good look at told me that the attackers were Predators and thought I was dead  so if I wanted to live I should stay still. 
 
Then the dream cut to me running through my house seeing glimpses of cloaked figures and I felt a sense of dread as if I was going to be killed. I came to a door that lead outside but didn't go through because dream logic told me that if I left the house I would be killed even quicker.  I then found myself hidden in a closet with what I assumed to be a Predator on the other side, pulling at the door to get it open. I lost the battle and the door flung open to reveal a human who was there to warn me that I had been called to the Predator home world to participate in their games. In order to transport myself to their homeworld I had to drink the blood of a person who was called before me and survived and drink a vile of their blood. This person just happened to my grandpa. He refused to give me his blood for some reason and I failed to get the blood then I would be hunted on Earth and would be killed. So as you can guess I was kind of freaking out in the dream.
 
Cut to the next "scene" in the dream and I'm in a dump with Angel from the Buffy series. Why? I don't really know why him exactly but he seemed to know where a vile of blood that belonged to by grandpa was hidden. It was in a giant black fridge that was up against a wall. He opened it but then a creature that I can only describe as the Jockey from Left 4 Dead 2 wondered up behind us and jumped on me. Angel instructed me to spit a loogie in it's face and while it's stunned I scream at it for it to die. Doing this made it back off but then it transformed into man in a business suit and again it jumped on me.
 
That's where the dream ended and I woke up confused at what exactly happened. But I guess that's how all dreams are.

I am awesome.

I usually avoid bad games and I rarely ever end up hating or not liking a game that's been critically acclaimed. But if I had to pick a game that I didn't particularly care for then it's probably Resident Evil 5.  I don't hate the game I just found it to be a major disappointment. It's good but didn't live up to my (or almost anyone's) expectations of what a sequel to RE4 should have been.

If it's good then I'll buy it. People who ignore them are really missing out on some amazing games.

I, yes I, finished a full game of Monopoly. But it wasn't just a normal game of Monopoly, no sir! It was Transformers Monopoly! Ah wuh chuh chee choo choo. Yes I know that expertly typed out Transformers transforming sound blew your mind but please stay with me here.

2 hours into the game, I have hotels (called Anti-matter in this version) on many spaces on the board including Earth and Cybertron which is Transformers Monopoly's equivalent of Park Place and Boardwalk. I draw an Autobot card that makes me pay $200 for every Anti-matter I have on the board. I have to mortgage most of my property to help pay the costs but that didn't slow me down, no sir! I came back and with vengeance gaining money faster than you could say "Ah wuh chuh chee choo choo".

Then the end game rolled around. My opponent rolls a 7 and lands on Cybertron having to pay $2000 in rent because of the Anti-matter in play. Even when he mortgaged out all his property he still couldn't afford the sky high rent costs rendering him bankrupt and I, yes I, became victorious.

The pictures are here, here, here, and here. It looks the same, which is good, but they've touched up the graphics some but not so much that it looses it's original look. You can tell they've done a lot of anti-aliasing.

The video is here. I have no idea how this guy managed to get the game two months before it's release. He must be an employee at Rare or something.

News also broke that Banjo-Tooie (my personal favorite BK game) is going to be released early next year for 1,200 points ($15). I can't wait to play that again.

Remember, Banjo-Kazooie will cost 1,200 points ($15) and will be released on the Xbox Live Arcade November 26. But if you pre-order Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts then you'll get access to the XBLA game 2 weeks before release and for free. So you'll be able to pick up Nuts & Bolts on Nov. 11 and play BK on the same day...for free. That's a great deal.

I bought Braid and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. I haven't played either yet but judging from the demos of each I think I'm going to like them.

I've finally got internet back....and it's faster than before. I used to download at a max of 156 KB and now I'm downloading at a max of 500 KB. It's insanely fast and it's awesome to boot.

Now check out my gamercard.