A dark, uncaring place, bigger than me or you where everything is trying
to kill you in gruesome, malicious ways. It seems hard to live in
Trumps America in times like these but enough about that, Limbo then.
You may remember Limbo as being one of the biggest games of 2010, being
praised for its minimalist yet engrossing style, atmospheric world
building and subtle challenge. The whole game is presented in a grey
scale monochrome with ambient sounds to increase tension. Limbo is a
physics puzzle-platformer wherein you move to the right, occasionally
jumping or climbing onto ledges, and have to navigate various physics
puzzles like see-saws, momentum jumps and gravity switching.
You play a nameless little boy that wakes up in a forest, no explanation
or anything, you're just there. From that point you travel right
through a forest much bigger than yourself avoiding bear traps, solving
puzzles and avoiding giant spiders to make it to... that's not really
explained. You see Limbo is a game that's definitely on the show don't
tell side of things and therefore has no voice acting or dialogue at
all, mainly because you never come across anyone to converse with. The
few humans you do come across are either trying to kill you, running
away from you or dead, all of this adding to the feeling of being a
small fish in a big evil pond, but the story isn't what you should be
focusing on.
The puzzles in Limbo are both very subtle and challenging, at first
seeming very easy and upon attempting that veil swiftly gets removed to
show a very well thought out sequence of events that will often result
in you dying usually due to some unknown reason. The physics side of this puzzle-platformer has to dragging boxes to climb on to make it to the next ledge or weigh a button down to enable a temporary gravity switch. It does take a little while to unlearn video game physics and get your mind inline with how apparent chaos theory is when objects fall. But once you have, solving a puzzle where in you have to enable a gravity switch to lift two giant boxes off the floor, then magnetize one of them to the ceiling while the other remains on the ground as a platform gives you even more satisfaction than just avoiding enemies.
It's more about what
everything represents than what it actually is, the hidden meanings of
this bleak world you've found yourself in. That does make it subjective
from player to player but anyway you cut it it about being a small,
insignificant plaything in a vicious, unforgiving world and I know that
not all gamers will enjoy that but it does make Limbo a great example of
Games as Art and not just your simple run of the mill platformer.
It's a short game but don't be fooled by its length, it definitely feels
substantial enough, if you can get it on sale you won't be unhappy with
the price to gameplay ratio. My complaints come with the grey scale
aspect sometimes making the foreground and background interchangeable
leaving you cursing away as a misjudged jump plunges you into darkness
and spikes. The end is a bit open ended but if you can get your head
around the metaphor of the game as a whole then I'm sure you will be
able to push past it's abruptness, making an ending up yourself.
Limbo does promote itself with replay-ability as an increase in
difficulty doesn't become a test of attrition in this circumstance,
knowing the puzzles will refine your run but not necessarily make it
easier.
At the end of the day, Limbo is a great little game. It's a good size
for what it gives you and it's simplicity in art style and story mixed
with its complexity of gameplay will interest a lot of gamers. I
recommend Limbo to all gamers because the controls are easy to learn and
it provides a good example of intelligent, sometimes pretentious, games
but staying easily digestible as it's left up to you.
Check out Limbo, you won't regret it. Until then though, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.
