Video Game Reviews: LIMBO

Written by Rich LeFevre // January 24, 2011 // Video Games // No comments

Being a good scientologist, I know I’d never die and go to Limbo, but some of those heathens that live in the servants’ quarters may have to worry about such things. I guess that is whom this game is for.

In this platformer, you control a small boy as he travels through a world filled with perilous traps and it is through the gruesome death sequences (upon failing at these puzzles) that you start to gain an emotional attachment to this boy.

There is no dialog, nor any description of controls when the game begins. You simply have to learn from your mistakes and the use of trial and error (or in this case trial and “death”) to make your way through this silhouetted landscape. This trial and error style is what leads to the AH HA! discoveries that are so gratifying.

The developers take the classic form factor of a platformer and break it down, polishing this genre to perfection.

LIMBO is incredibly beautiful. I cannot emphasize that enough. The simple minimalist nature of it is perfect for this genre. There are no colors, only shades that lie in the grayscale. There is no music, only occasional tones when something of interest happens. That is not to say that there is no sound. The game is filled with sound. The sound of birds chirping. The sound of the boys feet on the ground as he runs from giant spiders. The sound of rain or dripping water that begs for you to drown in it. The sound of boulders falling, trying to crush you, or the sound of bear traps that slice you to pieces. Every death more gruesome than the last, but none so horrible that you cannot watch (let me remind you there is no color), as you only see these things in silhouette. Some death sequences were so extraordinary that the people watching in my house would laugh from time to time if they deemed death unbelievable enough.