Review: Limbo

 Xbox360Digest.com 

The Digest: After months of interviews, teaser You Tube clips, and all the hype and hoopla you can handle, one of the most anticipated Xbox Live Arcade releases of the summer has finally arrived and will absolutely blow your mind.

THE FACT SHEET

RELEASE DATE: July 21, 2010
PUBLISHER: Xbox Live Arcade
DEVELOPER: Playdead
PRICE: 1200 MS Points ($15)
GENRE: Platform, Puzzle, Adventure Game




PRODUCT OVERVIEW:
Your heart begins to beat faster as your palms become moist with sweat. You mouth feels dry as your eyes widen and the hair stands up on the back of your neck. You grip the controller and prepare for a world unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Welcome to Limbo.


PRODUCT FEATURES:

   
• Excellent Storyline
   
• Addictive Game Play
   
• 24 Levels
   
• Simple Controls

The highly anticipated release of what might be the greatest platform game since Super Mario Brothers has finally arrived. The independent Danish game studio Playdead has been creating quite a stir within the Xbox 360 community since Limbo’s public unveiling during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last March. The developers made a splash by taking home winners in both Technical Excellence and Excellence in Visual Arts while at GDC’s 12th annual Independent Games Festival. Playdead would follow suit by nabbing Industry awards for Best Downloadable Game at E3 2010 from IGN, Gamespot, and G4TV respectively.


The all black and white title puts you directly into the hands of a small boy caught in a world he knows nothing about. His only reasoning for venturing forward is to find his lost younger sister in hopes of returning her home safely.


The game opens up with your character awaking in what seems to be a calm and peaceful forest. You direct your trip east and soon realize you were drastically misinformed about the forest being anything but peaceful. Your new friend will encounter everything from giant spiders, falling trees, and even faceless adults hurling fiery automobile tires from the top of cliffs. It seems just about everything within the games environment is striving to kill you or deter you from progressing forward. To make things worse, the young boy is only equipped with the silhouette on his back and the 30 inch vertical leap the developer Gods have instilled in him to conquer death around each corner. And death is most certainly around every corner!

This one giant death trap is broken up into 24 continuous chapters or levels, which automatically save when you advance past each one. The chapters take place in four main settings; a forest, a thriving industrial plant, a metropolitan area, and a broken down factory. The puzzles featured within the game are absolutely mind-boggling, from avoiding giant spiders to massive saws looking to cut you into pieces. Of course the puzzle difficulty gets progressively harder with each passing chapter and the margin for error decreases significantly. The changing of gravity will drive you crazy and the nasty little worms that bury themselves into your head will have you cursing at the television. Yet these annoying obstacles will have you missing them when you come face to face with the industrial sized military guns looking to rip you apart in an instant. There are of course a few surprises along the way in terms of puzzles but your timing and use of environment is key to finding them.




The sounds, music, and the graphics featured within the game are what really separates this title from similar platform games. Limbo relies heavily on creating a mood from the time you fire up the game to the time you shut it down. The storyline doesn't drag the player through a predetermined story, rather this title puts you in control of the storyline. We know we are searching for the unnamed little boy's unnamed sister, but the way we get there is totally up to you. Some puzzles have only one way of solving but some of the more complex puzzles can be completed in a variety of ways. Thus essentially making the progression of the storyline up to you. The sounds that coincide with the game submerge the user ever further into the world of Limbo. The walking sounds are different for each type of terrain you are walking in, When you're in the forest it sounds like you're in the forest and when you climb a metal ladder it sounds like hands smacking the metal posts. Not only do the sounds match up with the actions of the characters movement but the environment reacts as well. When you move a crate or drag a boxcar through some gravel or over a shallow pond, it  really sounds as if you were doing those actions.

Now the graphics of the game may be a little unimpressive at first glance but when you get settled into the game you will understand their basic premise. Everything in the game is in two-dimensional black and white with some shades of both in between. Along with the black and white environments comes the all black  silhouettes of the characters and the main objects placed around the games environment. Some of the main objects may blend-in with the background or foreground making it a challenge trying to find objects needed to complete certain puzzles. For this reason you want to slow down and play the game the way it was intended to be play. It's all physics and reaction time once you hit the ground running. So pay attention to the environment and how it reacts to your movements and advancements. Of course the game is going to challenge your intellect as well, but it's really going to strain your will power.

For some the choice for an all black and white game may be something of an annoyance but for others it holds a much deeper meaning than just aesthetics. The developers beautifully infuse German Expressionism throughout the game with the dark and gloomy opening title to the tale of a young boy’s nightmare. There is also lot of symbolism scattered through the game to compliment its artistic appeal as well. You can see the vivid comparison as the storyline progresses from the bright and happy forest to the phlegmatic decay of the once fruitful factory. These creative elements combine to truly make this a unique and playable masterpiece.

Adding to the overall mystique of the game are the extensive and dramatic death sequences. Rather than your character dying a quick and painless death, he suffers a slow and brutal one. Not to mention some of them are strangely hilarious as well but that’s beside the point. Some of the death sequences seem to be put there by the developers to have a little chuckle of their own at your expense. You may miss a jump by an inch or two and find yourself impaled on a row of tree branches placed ever so carefully for you to conveniently land on. You may also unexpectedly stumble on a bear trap that looks much like the rest of the environment, but severs your body into two rather than providing you ground to walk on. Don’t want to watch your new friend suffer a bloody and disturbing death? No need to worry since the game comes with a built in anti-gore setting. Simply go to the settings menu from the main screen and turn the Gore Filter to on. Your character will still die a horrible and pain filled death, but you will just see a black screen rather than his body parts flying in all directions.



Conclusion:I admit I was a bit skeptical about this game before firing up the Xbox 360 and diving right in. Fortunately I was proven wrong and really blown away by literally every aspect of this title. I’m still wondering if this is truly the next game or series of games that dethrones our oldest friend Mario and his green pants wearing brother Luigi. I think it’s possible but of course that remains to be seen. We do know however that with a fantastic story line, genius concept, and a little boy determined to face things that would make Mario and his pals pee themselves, Limbo is without a doubt the start of something amazing.

PROS	CONS
- Great Storyline - Living, Breathing, Playable Work of Art - Avatar Awards - Challenging Puzzles	- Respawn Time - No Achievement Explanation

Single Player: 5/5 | Multi-Player: N/A

Special thanks to Playdead Studios for providing us with a copy of the game for review.