Limbo a finely crafted, minimalist 2-D puzzle platformer

by Chris Vandergaag on July 26th, 2010 at 10:03 AM

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Limbo (Playdead; Xbox 360; rated teen)

You might like Limbo if you enjoyed Braid, or if you’ve always wished LittleBigPlanet was a little more depressing.

You might not like Limbo if you’ve sustained a serious brain injury recently.

Yup, we’re dealing with the kind of game that critics love but—because of its quiet, minimalist presentation and puzzle elements—may disappoint some gamers who generally play louder, faster games but bought Limbo anyway, because of beautiful screenshots and great review scores. And you can already see the forum discussions: fans of the game will unleash contempt (or pity, since clearly, TC suffers from some measure of diminished mental capacity) upon anyone who dares dislike it. Such whipping boys will in turn, call Limbo’s fans pretentious. That’s just how these things work; ask Braid, Okami, and any other “art” game.

But let’s get right down to it—this is a positive review. Limbo is among the most memorable, lovingly crafted 2-D puzzle platformers I’ve ever played. Since I can only experience it for the first time once, I want to share Limbo with everyone I know, and watch them play it. And I wanted to thrust an Xbox controller into Roger Ebert’s hands, and make him revisit that “video games can’t be art” piece, before I discovered he’d already recanted much of it, earlier this month.

Limbo is definitely artistic, not merely in terms of its uncommon simplicity of staging (bare minimum of story conveyed entirely through pictures, no dialogue) or its visuals, which are absolutely gorgeous and give Limbo a “look” all its own, but rather with regard to the art of gameplay design.

I don’t play every game of this type (“artsy” Xbox Live/PlayStation Network games with retro gameplay sensibilities, costing $10 to $20, made by independent developers or small studios), not even all of the ones critics swoon over. But I really admired 2008’s Braid for how it provided a framework for a series of clever puzzles, without ever making you think, “Okay, it’s time to do a puzzle now.”

Similarly, Limbo’s puzzles are well integrated, and it’s really good at wordlessly presenting the puzzle parameters (the block, the switch, the moving platform), making it clear where you need to be, then letting you have at it, without violating any rules it has implied, or cheating to make things tougher. There’s got to be an art—or at least a craft—to accomplishing this so well.

Control-wise, there’s a floaty feel to the physics of jumping, swinging, and block-dragging, reminiscent of LittleBigPlanet, which didn’t always feel all that precise. But it works fine; Limbo is less about nimble platforming, than pushing forward by solving puzzles, gaining access to new areas through making the right choices.

It’s short—it took me just four hours or so to get to the end—but at 1,200 Microsoft points (or $15), no complaints here. Besides which, there’s enough platforming variety to make subsequent runs enjoyable, even once you’ve “solved” its puzzles.