Limbo Review

You rise and shine in a forest, the world around you is a mix of black, gray, and white. Armed with nothing but your own courage, you must begin your extremely far-fetched journey without any knowledge of how you arrived to your current location, or where your final resting-place is. All you know is that you must face the fear of the unknown and continue forward.

As the first non-independently published title from Danish developer Playdead, Limbo had a lot riding on its success. The developer has been tooling around with this game idea for several years (after finding  funding in 2006), but much of the work (around 70%) was scrapped at various points and remade, hence the long development time. I’m actually glad Playdead took their time on this one, as they ended up creating one of the most hauntingly endearing platformers to come out in a long time. Also I am glad that they used the money from the 300.000+ copies from the first month after release, to buy itself from investors.

"In order to complete and expand Limbo, Playdead founders Arnt Jensen and Dino Patty called on the Danish government. When the company still needed more money, the govenment assisted Jensen and Patty in finding investors to help get Limbo on its feet.Now the company has made enough money off of Limbo to buy itself back from its investors. " Source: Kotaku

Firstly I’d like to address the price point issue here as it seems to be a strong reason for not purchasing the game for some people. 9,99€. I got about three to four hours from Limbo (not going to count replay time here). A retail game costs roughly 40€ in the UK and lasts anything between eight and fifteen hours on average. Multiply the price of Limbo by four to roughly match retail price at 40€, and if you do the same with the time to complete you will be left with a twelve to sixteen hour game for 40€. When put into perspective, the price is actually comparable to most retail titles and I can guarantee there is more imagination and creativity in Limbo than half the games out there. I’d strongly suggest giving the demo a spin before making any decisions.

If we read the description of the game we get an idea of the story but in-game, we get nothing. There’s no real opening, no dialog, no cinematic, no real purpose. What we do get is near perfect animation, and a location that we wanted to get away from. Limbo is a place that we don’t want to say in, the world looks cold and in this state of black and white we don’t feel comfortable staying here. If you didn't read the background of the game you don’t need to know that you’re playing a boy looking for his sister. All you know about and care about is that you’re in a place that isn't very pleasing. You want to leave and you don’t care why. But for those that do care and do want to know more, the emotional experience of Limbo is something you’ll never forget.

The gameplay of Limbo is actually really straightforward, as there aren’t many tricks or gimmicks to speak of. Instead, the focus seems to be on the mood of the game, and the way the puzzles play into the feeling of fright that pervades the environments. Each of the puzzles in the game is a deadly trap that must be disarmed in the proper manner in order to progress. This isn’t exactly original, but the visual presentation keeps things feeling really fresh in spite of this fact.

As you progress through the game, the puzzles get progressively more complicated, though they never reach the disturbing level of difficulty that some of the latter Braid challenges did. Each of the game’s puzzles feels pretty unique, and throughout the experience, it did feel like I was encountering new things to do, despite the lack of any additions to my moveset. The pacing was perfect throughout, with some moments of beautiful tension inserted between tough challenges to help keep the game flowing forward nicely.

Unfortunately, though the latter half of the game is more complicated than the first, it just isn’t as cool. There are several awesome encounters with a spider beast early in the game.It’s too bad that this sort of interesting scripted event starts to be less and less common as the game progresses. It’s as if most of the 70% of the game don’t have memorable moments because they concentrated on the puzzles. I’m a huge fan of puzzles, but I also like to interact with interesting creatures in surprising ways, like what happened early on in the game.

Still, none of this really hurts the title too much. It’s still really fun and has some of the most stunning visual presentation I’ve ever seen in a 2D title. The main character moves with beautiful fluidity and is nicely juxtaposed with the stark, mechanical deadliness of the game’s environments. As I worked my way through the game, the natural surroundings gave way to man-made settlements and foundries, each of which was no less beautiful than the last.

The visual beauty of the game may have been enough on its own, but Playdead also incorporated some enchanting minimalist audio design. There’s hardly any music to speak of in the game; instead most of the audio is ambient environmental designs, which add to the haunting feeling that pervades this game from start to finish. The world sounds suitably empty, and this just increased the feeling of isolation.

The human mind automatically attempts to fill in the blanks even when not required to and whether by design or accident, I think Limbo takes advantage of this psychological element of the human brain very well. I realize however, this is not everyone’s cup of tea, and as a result many have simply dismissed the game as an attempt to be ‘ artsy’ as many other indie games have attempted.

However, Limbo does fall a little short in terms of story. I understand that it is supposed to be as understated as possible, and that any kind of text or dialogue might have ruined the mood. Still, I don’t think that this means that the story had to be as uninteresting as what was presented in the game. The ending left me thoroughly unimpressed, especially when compared with similar “artsy” games like Braid. I just wasn’t left with a feeling of completion at the end liked I hope I would.

If you’re a fan of silent films then Limbo is the perfect game for you. Limbo is fine mix of Expressionism that takes gamers to a place unseen by most other video games. If you’ve ever wanted an artistic game, Limbo is that game. From the simplicity of gameplay, to the complexity of the artwork, Limbo is a game that should be mandatory material for gamers and artists alike. As a game, this is a return to simplistic controls that needs to be more in games, as art, Limbo visually takes us to another world and won’t let go. Just looking at this game will deserve an emotional response unlike any other.

Conclusion: In spite of the few shortcomings, Limbo manages to be an excellent puzzle-platformer. Its visuals will certainly stand the test of time, and the feeling of dread and aimlessness throughout the game is more palpable than in many retail titles that strive for the same thing. Limbo was certainly a fun experience, and one that I will likely be coming back to.

A game that I am looking for some months now for fresh news is Feist that looks very similar to Limbo, but there were no news about it since January 2011 and this makes me think that they would've quit.

Here's the official trailer: