Difficulty:

Very Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

This generation has provided some interesting platforming games, Braid for example. Limbo has come along and provided another great experience, from an artistic standpoint, but that is about where the good news ends.

Limbo has a great, dark, artstyle. All the shades of gray, overlapping layers to the levels really pop out artistically. It also puts you in the perfect mood to play the events that will unfold around you. I won't spoil any of these events, but just want to let you know that is the best part of the game.

What limbo isn't good at is being a platformer, which is unfortunate because it is a 2D puzzle platformer. Your character will control like mud, and can't even swim a little bit drowning the second his little head barely touches water. While this is ok for Mario, it doesn't make sense in the mature setting the events take place in. Such controls were placed for a reason though to ensure there were more than a few puzzle types to conquer.

The game attempts to be seemless as you move around the different environments. You won't really have any indication of where each task or chapter breaks up logically until you die and respawn. But the game does a very good job at keeping the check-points close together. This is a very good thing because even if you walk at a snails pace a lot of the traps and puzzles will snap out at you with little chance for you to know what is coming.

By trial and error you can easily get past every puzzle in the game and that is the reason I would classify it as a very good trial and error game. "Try this, dead - Ok try that a little different, dead - one more thing, ah there we go." Repeat for 3-4 hours. That pretty much sums up the action. Not every puzzle is like this, but every time you get stuck somewhere for a few tries it will be because you didn't see it coming before it was too late - and you can't manuver yourself out of the trap quick enough.

The game is very gory when the user dies, always in a good black and white shaded death. One important mention in this regard is there is a gore toggle on the game. So while it is rated teen, flip the switch and you can play it in front of anyone. I wish I would have known that from a professional review as it was one of the reasons I didn't buy it for a while.

There is only one difficulty setting, though there are added difficultly measures via the achievement list that ranges from finding random white lights hidden around the levels, to finishing the game with only dieing 5 times or less. But the game isn't difficult in any measure of the word.

The ending left me a little worried that this might have been the worst ending possible initially, but it turned out ok as well despite all the reviewers complaining about it.

Still it is a good game and worth playing if you liked the demo. Which also deserves kudos for the game. The demo is well crafted and doesn't just jolt you with a "buy me screen" when time runs out.

From demo to ending the game just oozes artistic awesome. But there isn't a story to mention and the gameplay itself is fairly lame. Still it is worth playing at some point.