Limbo is the one of the most imaginative, beautiful games I have played in a long time. And while it may be a bit short for its asking price of 1200 Microsoft Points (£12.75), it is absolutely worth buying.
It's the style and the atmosphere of the game that make it so wonderful. It takes on the appearance of an old silent movie, and is completely in black and white. The environments and characters are 2D, and almost look like shadow puppets. This sensibility works wonders for the game, and is resultantly rather creepy. It reminds me of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events somehow, and it's certainly refreshing in world where most games are FPSs taking place in grey, gritty, urban near-future warzones. It just looks absolutely fantastic, and is a joy to look at. The soundtrack is equally brilliant, consisting of mostly ambient drones and quiet noises like soft wind and small creatures. It helps contribute to an isolated, haunting, and etheral aura, and is much better than being bombarded by loud, generic techno beats that you find in other games (some, but not all).
This sense of minimalism carries on to other aspects of Limbo. There is no dialogue or story presented to you directly; instead, you just play things as they happen. If you manage to avoid reading the plot description / synopsis on the Xbox Live Arcade, everything will remain mostly ambiguous to you. And it's better that way, so I won't be recalling that synopsis here. I love the way the game begins, without any exposition or tutorials. You don't know who the boy you're controlling is, where you are, or what you're doing. The way the game ends is also marvelous.
The gameplay itself is rather simple too - apart from movement, you'll only need to use two other buttons: one to jump, and one to "use." This seemingly leads to a kinda laid-back approach, and in some ways, it is. But the game contains some elements of both platforming and puzzles, and some of the puzzles are reasonably difficult in finding out what you have to do. This leads into my only real complaint with Limbo, which is essentially a matter of personal preference. The game begins in organic, woodland areas which are incredibly pleasing to look at. The further into the game you get though, the more man-made the environments become, eventually leading to things like machine-guns and anti-grav lifts. It leads to increasingly complex and frustrating puzzles that sometimes reminded me of N+ (although nowhere near as hard or anger-inducing). While I understand that this development in aesthetic is perhaps even a key factor in the game, I simply like the rural, natural areas more. Don't get me wrong though, the entirety of Limbo still looks phenomenal.
The other of Limbo's pitfalls, as I said before, is that it's rather a short game. I'm not entirely sure how long it took me to complete, but it probably wasn't much more than 3 hours. The achievements might give the more hardcore among you reason to go back, but searching for hard-to-find collectibles isn't really my thing. The length was initially a put-off for me (considering the price), but the art style and the atmosphere are just too good to miss.
This being PlayDead Studios' premiere title, I sincerely hope it gains them some much-deserved recognition, as I'll be looking forward to whatever their follow-up releases may be. After playing this and Amanita Design's gorgeous Samorost 2 recently, I think there's more reason to be watching indie game developers than there is the big studios. It's not very likely to happen due to the big dollars that first-person shooters and sequels bring in, but I really really wish there were more games like these.
8.5/10
