Limbo (PC)
Platform: PC (played), XBLA, PSN
Developer: PLAYDEAD
Genre: Platformer/puzzle
Released: July 21, 2010
Metacritic: 88
Summary: Face of a super model, heart of a serial killer.
0:00 - Start in a forest lying on the ground. Slowly I wake up, get up, and I’m in control. No ceremony, just gloomy, foreboding atmosphere and an ominous monochromatic color scheme.
0:01 - Odd control scheme for the PC. Movement is fixed to the arrow keys, rather than allowing the typical WASD movement. Only other button is a nebulous “action” button, which is fixed to Ctrl of all keys. Not too happy with that. Making a computer game without the ability to rebind the controls just seems lazy to me.
0:02 - Limbo is an atmospheric game, using ambient noise to add to the feel of it. So, of course, my roommate just now decided to start vacuuming. Thank god for headphones.
0:04 - So far the game is just basic platforming and puzzle solving. It’s hauntingly beautiful, though.
0:05 - Walked into a bear trap and died. Surprisingly graphic death animation. Really adds to the looming threat that the atmosphere provides.
0:09 - Okay, in just the past 5 minutes the game has gone from “hauntingly beautiful” to “I’m not really noticing the environment anymore because everything in the forest wants me dead.”
0:11 - Dying a lot now. Fortunately the game doesn’t really punish you due to frequent checkpoints and fast load times. Also, apparently the kid you play as both cannot swim and drowns after a couple of seconds. Either this forest is full of the not-water from the Vamp boss fight in MGS 2, or this kid sucks at life.
0:13 - Nor, for that matter, can he hold onto a floating box to keep from drowning. I’m not sure why that’s not a valid answer to this platforming puzzle, but apparently Limbo wants me to do things it’s way, whatever that may be.
0:16 - No wonder I couldn’t solve this puzzle. It wasn’t a puzzle at all, it was a death trap disguised as a puzzle indicating that I was going the wrong way. Fantastic.
0:18 - So rather than using the floating box that’s right there to float to the other side, you’re instead supposed to drag the floating box ashore, use it to jump onto a hanging vine, scale 40 feet into the air, and push over a damaged part of a tree trunk to float across on. Yes, that makes so much more sense than just using the box. How silly of me.
0:20 - OH SHIT A GIANT MURDER-SPIDER. THAT’S NOT A GOOD PRIZE.
0:21 - Impaled vertically by one of the giant spider legs then tossed aside like rubbish. This game does not pull it’s punches. Even in a world of games where you saw people in half, this has to be one of the most graphically brutal games I’ve played in a long while.
0:24 - Clever puzzle there involving the giant murder-spider, involving tricking it into destroying it’s own legs via bear trap and careful timing. More of that, less esoteric, roundabout problem solving, please.
0:27 - Trapped by a spider, stabbed, wrapped up in a spider web, and not only did it not kill me, it gave me just what I needed to advance. This game is seriously fucked up.
0:30 - While wrapped in the web the only way to move is via hopping. I’m sure they didn’t mean this, but the devs have managed to make a kid lost in the woods, trapped in spider web, and pitifully hopping along look… silly.
0:32 - Good news: escaped another spider and got out of the webbing. Bad news: death traps are getting more complicated.
0:33 - Starting to notice dead bodies in the background. I expected this game to be more moody and contemplative, not murderously brutal.
0:35 - A marionette murder-spider? What the fuck?
0:36 - The marionette was being operated by another kid who ran away as I got close. Well shit, I’m not alone. Y’know, beyond the murder-spiders.
0:38 - Okay, there are multiple other kids here, and they’re trying to set me on fire and throwing bear traps at me. Why do I get the feeling that therapists would have a field day with the developers of this game?
0:42 - And the murder-spider kills the other kids. This game is making the world of Madworld look friendly.
0:43 - EAT BOULDER, MURDER-SPIDER! I found that way more triumphant than I probably should’ve.
0:45 - And now I’m having way too much fun hopping on the head of a crippled murder-spider. That’s right, you can’t hurt me! Suck it, death incarnate!
0:46 - I hadn’t noticed before that the spiders make a purring sound. I notice this as I viciously rip off the murder-spider’s one remaining leg off and roll his still-living body so I can shove it into a pit of deadly spikes, allowing me to cross. This is feeling less like a video game and more like creepy interactive snuff-porn. I’m sure they’re going for horror (and they somewhat succeed), but it just seems more like exploitative brutality for the sake of it.
0:52 - Now a puzzle solved by dragging a drowned corpse out of the shallows and throwing it into a pit, triggering a tripwire and dropping a massive stone, crushing the drowned corpse. Even the makers of the Saw movies would wondering if this is a bit excessive. Also, brain controlling larvae. Yay.
0:55 - Three murder-kids come after me, I lead them into the traps I just dodged, and they get brutally killed. I’m running out of things to say about how brutal this game is.
1:00 - Shockingly I finish the hour without dying or killing anything else, aside from disposing of an enterprising brain larvae that tried to drown me.
Conclusion: While the most obvious parts of Limbo are the remarkable aesthetics and the stunning acts of brutality, at its core Limbo is a very good puzzle platformer. Aside from that one puzzle earlier on, the puzzles all make sense and are just tough enough to provide challenge without being frustrating.
Will I play it again: Yes.
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