LIMBO - PS3 - Demo - Review

[Ohio Joe]

I downloaded this last night because it was wicked small... I forget, just 80 or 90 meg... and had a cool name. I know nothing about it. Install is wicked fast, which it should be.

The splash screen that pops up when you have the game highlighted but before starting is very cool looking. Black and white... A forest but almost dream like... A little creepy with the music they have maybe more like nightmare like.

OK, Fire up the game... Same forest but now with the very cool LIMBO logo across it, start is the only option.

Controls - These look as simple as they get. Left thumb-stick moves you, X is jump and O is the ambiguous "action"... not sure what that means. I start a new game...

Zooming into a forest, everything still black and white and nightmarish... music is gone. It looks like there is a corpse in the grass. Nothing happening for a minute... The corpse eyes open and it gets up... oh... Jesus... It's not a corpse, it is a little boy in his PJ's... Everything is in shadow so it is a bit hard to tell but I swear that is what it looks like.

Nothing happens for a bit and then I realize that was the entire intro... ok, WTF is going on here?

This is definitely a little boy. He moves across the screen very much like the old side scrollers. Everything is hidden in shadow and still black and white and nightmarish... I'm guessing this kid just woke up in a nightmare. The darkness keeps everything from being seen and this would normally annoy me but I see what they are going for here and it works, very creepy.

You run to the right until you are standing on the edge of a log that hangs over a cliff and you cannot see the bottom. I go back a little to experiment with how far I can jump... ehhh not very far, I guess it's over the cliff...

oh... my god... who made this? I decided to jump over the cliff in a last second choice and promptly became a bit top heavy and went face first down the slope killing the boy... jesus. I appear just a bit before the cliff and go over slowly and manage to not kill the child again. There is a small pit that I can't really see the bottom of it, so I jump it and live.

A little further along there is a cart under a shack and a rope hanging down you can only get to if you get on the shack. I can't jump directly to the top and soon figure out the "action" button. Hold it while near the cart and you can pull it out, get in cart, jump on roof... No problem. I jump to the rope and auto grab it, can't really go up, so down into the mist it is. It leads to a teetering platform attached to the rope, I can see to the left is a ledge I can reach and mist to the right... To the left... Man, don't be making me kill this kid over and over... oh you fuckers... Down to the left and off the ledge... and into water that promptly drowns the kid... poor kid, little air bubbles coming up, waving arms... just for a bit, then he goes limp... I can see an up-roar over this game coming. I make my way back (when you die it very nicely leaves you just a bit before you died) and this time jump over the watery grave.

A little further and you come to the edge of some water and a boat is chained to the side just below you... Not much else to do but jump in. That breaks the chain and starts you across the water. The other side has a small shore that ends with a ledge you cannot reach. I remember the cart and pull the boat up close, then have to go to the other side to push it all the way. There is a tree I can climb on the ledge to go further up, then a big jump to a rope to climb the rest of the way up... off to the right again.

What the hell is that? Looks like spikes on the ground... To big to jump... Can I land in the middle and jump again...

Oh the game haters are going to have a field day over this one. Yes, as you probably guessed and I did not, those spikes were bear traps. The entrails and blood and head of the little boy are very graphic... Even with no screams and in black and white... That is a bit strange... He just dies quietly, no matter how violently.

Before long I figure out that there are two traps next to each other and that I can pull them apart so I can jump them individually. On to the right.

I come to a short drop... There is a tall ledge on the other side and a rope hanging in the middle with some kind of... dead, being eaten by bugs corpse of something. I can see I need to climb the rope to try and jump to the top of the ledge, so I try. Of course... The rope is held to low to make the jump by the dead thing and as I land I discover there is another bear trap in the shadows... heh. I figure this one out quick, pull the trap under the dead thing, jump on the rope and when it sags, the bear trap snaps off the dead thing and I can now make the jump... cool.

On to the right. I come to a two tiered ledge going down with the end of a log coming to-wards you, looks easy enough but I have a feeling this just keeps getting harder and harder. Down to the first ledge, jump to the log and start going up... whats that stuff rolling down the log... oh fuck, it the little bits of rock that precede a boulder... poor flattened boy. So quietly run down... heh, too funny... and just plain wrong at the same time.

OK, I'm going to stop here, even though I am going to finish this demo.

Game play - This is and old school platform game but they made some changes. Gone are the frantic twitch moves and hordes of enemies, to be replaced by some pretty smart puzzles. You do not need to be in any rush, the boy will sit in this horror of a wasteland while you decide how not to kill him for as long as you like.

Graphics - This thing reminds me very much of an old classic monster movie in black and white, with just a touch of blur. Once they had this set, they dropped in a child and came up with lots of ways for him to die because of you... heh. Still though, the shadows contrast very nicely and you can definitely see what you are doing... unless they don't want you to see but even when they do that, it is really part of the puzzle, so I can go with that. I see it as a daring move for a game and one that they pulled off with great skill. I like it.

Controls - As simple as they come, that always gets a thumbs up from me :D

Fun Factor - I imagine this was made by someone very much like me. Playing side scrollers and eating them up like candy back in the dawn of mass gaming. Eventually moving on to slower paced, more cerebral games as the reflexes slowed, only playing the action games when you could be content with being mediocre at best, heh. A fine mixing of the platformer and puzzle games. I happen to like it a lot from this short play, I really want to play more.

Bottom Line - I have no idea what they plan on charging for this game and right now I can't afford to buy any anyway but when I can, this is going to be a definite buy for me.

[ZombieHorde]

1. I absolutely loved the demo. I will definitely buy eventually.

The spider puzzle took me a few tries to pass. I have not passed the web puzzle yet.

I think the game is $15. If it was $10 I would have bought it, but I only had $20, so I bought Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team and Dead Block. I wanted two new games.

[Occulus]

2. I bought this on Steam as a rec from a friend

I have to say it's inventive.

I think the gist of the game is that the little boy is already dead- he's in Limbo, looking for his sister, IIRC. You can kill him as many times as you must and he still keeps coming back!

Poor kid. Good game, though. That bear trap bit startled me a bit when I got to it!