Where titles like Flower, Braid or Shadow of the Colossus would have been the most relatable games to leap to mind when thinking of examples of digital artistry, they have since been superseded, at least in my mind, by Limbo. Not that the game is now the end all beat all of what gamers should expect or use as a textbook example when comparing the medium to things like film, literature and painting, but it does advance the overall paradigm of ‘games as art’ progressively well. By offering gamers a chance to solve puzzles in a grim, ghastly world filled to the brim with the macabre, the main character – a nameless boy – becomes all the more endearing to us. Sure, it may not be the heroes we’re used to playing, battle-hardened space marines that would be able to overcome just about anything Limbo throws at them with enough damn explosives, but this only serves to bring us closer to the character we’re navigating through Limbo. And that is what makes the world so spectacularly interesting in the first place. All you can do is jump and commit a myriad of actions. You can’t punch, kick or block because everything that coexists in that game is trying to kill you in one way or another. Whether tribal children shooting at you with darts, giant spiders trying to impale you or getting crushed by any one of a thousand moving gears – Limbo is trying to convey a hostile and aggressive universe that you are not necessarily welcome in. You are an unwanted guest.
Thus, if you want to make it to the end, you have to be smarter than everything else that is trying to kill you. Sometimes this requires a quick press of a button or solving a problem at the very last second, but what matters is that the game constantly reinforces a solitary fact that you are always going to be the prey, never the predator. Where you can run out of ammo in a game and still have a means to defend yourself – Limbo only allows you to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge your way out of trouble. That is, if you’re clever enough to do it. The puzzles wrapped up in Limbo may seem a bit frustrating to many at first, but this is because they are not necessarily meant to be solved by the most conventional means possible. Just because a lever is there, doesn’t mean you should pull it and no, nine times out of ten, you really cannot jump as far as you think you can, despite how hard you press that damn ‘A’ button. While platforming is a big part of this game, using your mind to get to the next puzzle proved to be more satisfying than any chainsaw kill I scored with a Lancer in Gears of War. This certainly doesn’t go to say that those don’t have their place, just not in Limbo.
Where games like Halo, Gears of War and any other game in the myriad cornucopia of titles often professes that any situation can be overcome by the repeated application of brute force, Limbo is just the opposite. You can spend a significant amount of time attempting to force a puzzle to bend to your will only to have a moment of crystal clarity where you realize the solution was as easy as pushing something in a different direction or flipping a switch. But, despite this shift in gameplay mechanics, the conveyed journey is what will keep people playing, even when the puzzles frustrate them into momentary submission. Oh, that and the inventive ways this game kills your character and the absolutely demented things your character must perform. Without spoiling too much for the people who haven’t finished the game quite yet, this game has a lot of ways to kill your character. Giant arachnids, poison darts, drowning, crushing, electrocution, blunt trauma, gravity, buzz saws and yes, because it bears repeating, drowning. And this is where interesting design and dark humor happily meet at a crossroads to create a game. But because of the monochrome color palette of the title, the designers can get away with a significant amount of murder before anyone would really stop them. But then again, with such exemplary execution, I would be loathing to discouraging them.
Despite being an XBLA title as opposed to a full-fledged retail game that you can pick up in a box and take home to nestle gently on your shelf, there is absolutely zero reason in the world for this title to not garner the respect it is entitled to. In a world where Final Fantasy XIII, Halo 3, Gears of War 3, Resistance 3, Killzone 3 and Uncharted 3 are probably were or are the most anticipated titles for their respective communities it isn’t exactly a huge shocker that something original would be so well received. Limbo reminds just about everyone that video games have the capacity to transcend the boundary of what a game is suppose to be and it doesn’t exactly hurt anything that it is pretty f-king original to boot. If you don’t like 2D platforming games or puzzles and have a single-minded preference to a certain genre of titles then honestly, you probably won’t like Limbo. That being said, I still feel Limbo has the capacity to broaden niche gamers horizons exponentially. Nevertheless, the game has an immense amount of power to not only challenge players but to make them feel very uncomfortable, which is what makes the title such a draw. Succinctly said, I can’t encourage playing Limbo enough. So, if you want to experience something genuinely fresh, interesting and watch first hand where games should be going from here on forward, spend some time in Limbo.
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