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Review by Jason Venter 
July 23, 2010
Limbo tells the story, in a general sense, of a boy who wakes up in a forest clearing. No explanation is given for his presence in that clearing and his identity remains a mystery even if you reach the game's closing credits. There's no spoken or written dialog and there are no cutscenes to break up the action, either. What you see is what you get. Some gamers might have a problem with the lack of a well-defined plot, but I appreciated the absence of unnecessary bells and whistles. Without them, I was more easily able to focus on the core experience.
As it turns out, that core experience is rather unique. Start playing the game and the first thing that you're sure to notice is the monochrome visual design. There's not a drop of color to be seen. You might suppose that Limbo would be an ugly game as a result, or that things would quickly blur together into a thoroughly forgettable mess, but nothing could be further from the truth. The lush forests and the imposing industrial areas that you'll explore over the course of your adventure are presented with exemplary attention to detail. Insects fill the air, mist rolls through the trees and clods of dirt fly into the air as the hero scrambles along ledges or wades through knee-high grass. Yet even with the signs of life all around, there's a striking sense of isolation. Something is wrong with the world and, for the right sort of gamer, that will feel very right.
Besides lending the game an artistic feel, the monochrome design forces the player to remain aware of the surrounding environment at all times. This is a world where fatal traps line the forest floor while massive spiders lurk in the shadows. The more verdant landscape is joined by sparking ledges and trash compactors in some of the more industrial areas. Even when there's no immediate danger, you have to remain alert or else you run the risk of overlooking something important. There are no mind-numbing tutorials to point you to a puzzle solution, no color-coded hints and no warning signs. You have to rely on your wits and you should be ready to fail spectacularly. Though Limbo lacks crimson tones, the on-screen action feels plenty gruesome when blades tear your character apart or when he is skewered by giant insect mandibles.
If you want to avoid an untimely end, you'll need to rely on your brain more often than you do your reflexes. Consider one of my early stumbling blocks. My character was running through the forest and a butterfly took flight ahead of him. I didn't think much of it until my winged friend was suddenly skewered by a giant spider leg. A second later, so was my character. No matter what I tried, arachnid execution seemed to result each time that I tried to advance. I could generally dodge out of the way at the last minute if an attempt went badly, but eventually I always perished. I knew that there had to be a way to proceed, but it repeatedly eluded me. When visual and aural clues finally led me to the solution, I definitely felt satisfied.
Much of that satisfaction wouldn't have been possible if the game had punished me unfairly for mistakes, but Limbo's developers knew better than that. When I faced that spider, for instance, each failure set me back only a short distance. I always had immediate access to all of the tools that I needed to succeed. Defeat was frustrating but tolerable. Elsewhere, I would run through one gauntlet or another while preparing to solve a puzzle, then die just before I could put everything into motion. In lesser games, I would have been forced to repeat the process. When I reappeared in Limbo, however, all of the most troublesome steps remained complete. I'd love to see other game developers adopt a similar approach.
Another of the game's strengths is its refusal to wear out its welcome. Too many games of this sort force the player to go through the same few crate-pushing puzzles with only one or two weak variations. It's an easy way for a developer to make a game last longer. While Limbo does feature its fair share of crate puzzles, though, you'll never really have to solve one that feels like a rehash of earlier challenges. Timed switches, changes in gravity and massive gears are just a few of the wrinkles that keep things from growing stale. If you stumble across a new crate or some other such object, you can be sure that you'll soon put it to use in a different way than you did previously. It's nice to play a game that values my time nearly as much as I do.
In an obvious and fairly typical attempt to add to the game's length, the developers also included collectible items. There are 10 of them available. Most of them are hidden away quite cleverly. Each one that you find is worth an Achievement, so there's incentive to keep searching. If you happen to miss any, you can also select "chapters" to revisit favorite zones. Of course, you may wish to simply play through the entire adventure a second or third time. The developers figure that if you can make it all the way through and only die five times or less, you deserve another Achievement. I'd say that's about right.
Thanks to its solid visual design, satisfying puzzles and intelligent design that doesn't punish the player for trying to have a good time, Limbo should be an easy recommendation. Unfortunately, its current price point makes a purchase difficult to justify. Give the game a try if you're looking for something different, but don't mistake it for anything more than what it is: a unique and polished title that doesn't last nearly as long as most players would expect from such a premium release.
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Most recent video game reviews written by Jason Venter
The Simpsons Arcade Game (Xbox 360) [February 04, 2012]
Pushmo (3DS) [January 31, 2012]
Unstoppable Gorg (PC) [January 19, 2012]
Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure (Xbox 360) [January 08, 2012]
Defense Grid: The Awakening (PC) [January 04, 2012]
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