Limbo

The more I write these reviews, the more I am beginning to realize that it is damn near impossible to complete a game in a week. If it was all I did, maybe. However as it stands, I have a life outside of video games that seems to prevent me from totally finishing most of the games I play, especially when there are holidays and families around. I can still pick apart the flaws of a game and get a good sense about of its merits, but I am missing out on chunks of the game and I will try my very bestest to play more in the future. Are we good? Good.

I played Limbo this week, a haunting and beautiful 2D side-scrolling platformer from Danish developer Playdead. Platformers, if you don't know, are classically console games in which the player jumps around on platforms to reach some kind of goal. Platformers were all the rage in the 8 and 16-bit eras of gaming with Mario and Sonic games leading the pack, but they fell out of favor with the advent of 3D gaming. However, with the recent indie-gaming boom, 2D platformers with 3D backgrounds and setpieces have made a major comeback, and Limbo is easily the best I've played so far.

In the game, you play a boy who is traversing a bleak landscape to do...something. I've heard that the boy is looking for his sister; a development that is undoubtedly revealed past the choke-point on which I've been stuck for too long to say. Any kind of traditional narrative doesn't really matter in this game, though. Like minimalist films such as  Meshes of the Afternoon, the story itself isn't the point of game. The game attempts to establish a mood and an emotion in the player. For all intents and purposes, this game is simply about a young boy trying to avoid death in a perilous environment.

The gameplay is as simple as can be. I bought it on Steam for my PC, so the controls for me were the left and right arrow keys to move side to side, the up arrow for jump and the control key to grab things. Those are really the only mechanics. However, much like the many uses for the portal gun in Portal, this simple gameplay leads to astonishing variety when combined with a physics engine. Pulling and jumping can only get you so far, unless things fall, slide and generally act in a way that is somewhat close to the real world. For instance, chains swing like they would in real life, so if a beam that you can pull is attached to a chain, you can pull it and use it to swing to a ledge or something. This opens up so many avenues through which developers can create fascinating puzzles.

Also, I can't move on without mentioning the beautiful art style of the game. Everything is in black and white, with varying shades of grey and strange depths of field creating a very dynamic environment. The visuals go so far in creating a sense of mystery and loneliness.






















It's just so creepy and beautiful it's hard to explain. I don't know how Playdead made this game, but it is simply glorious.

One of the interesting and truly genius things that Playdead did in Limbo is make the player character a child. Ask anyone, especially Steven Spielberg, and they will tell you that children in danger will instantly cause the audience to pay attention. This is not a children's game. This is a very dark and very violent game. I don't know how many times I watched that boy impale himself on a spike because of a bad jump or fall off of a cliff. The interesting thing is that every time it happened, it hurt a little. I cared more for this character, who never speaks and has no real motivation, than most of the speaking characters I've encountered in dozens of other games. It's because I'm playing as a child, as well as the fact that the violence is so brutal and pervasive and the environment is so engrossing. This game hurts to play, but in a good way. It is a very simple story of survival, but also a very powerful one.

One of the most noticeable things in the game is the boy's eyes. They glow brightly and seem to always be the whitest thing on the screen. At first I thought the game developers threw that in there to make the game even creepier, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that they're a symbol for life. Whenever the boy dies, you can see that light drain from his eyes. It's heartbreaking. There are other people in the game, but they don't have the bright eyes that the boy does. He's a pure, wide-eyed child in a very dark and scary world; something everyone can connect to.

This is one of the best games I've ever played. It's simply stunning. I love the minimalism of the whole affair, from the visuals to controls, and how they evoke this feeling of dread, mystery and even excitement. There are some small problems, such as some inaccurate jump mechanics and the boy's tendency to hang onto boxes even when it causes him to drown or electrocute himself. None of that matters though and I suggest everyone buy it. It's beautiful, it's affecting and it may be one of the best games of all time.