In-game databases are a love/hate feature in the current console generation. On one hand, one shouldn’t complain about the developers attempt to flesh out their world with every detail imaginable. On the other, some players don’t like having to interrupt their experience to check a reference for something that, in all likelihood, usually wasn’t that important anyway. Not unlike Frank Herbert’s Dune, the fiction behind both Final Fantasy XIII and Mass Effect begged context, which, on your first go-around, required a glossary. I doubt anyone expected a downloadable title like Limbo to contain an abundance of exposition, but it’s strict and deliberate avoidance of any narrative is worth noting. Context is there, sort of, but Playdead decided it was better to be absorbed rather than conveyed.
In fact, Limbo, in many ways, was the antithesis of modern game design. Like PixelJunk Eden or Flower (or hell, Super Mario Bros.), it’s very much a pick-up-and-go affair. Press start, walk left or right, and rely on the game’s world to teach you everything you need to know. Trial and error plays a significant role, but more often than not Limbo prides itself on allowing the player to engage and absorb its context, rather than struggle and fight its mechanics. Death is failure, but rarely one of significance. Your character’s frailty is as much an expression of boundaries as it is portrait of his predicament. Small in stature, decked in shorts and a t-shirt with tiny legs, and virtually no remarkable features other than his glowing eyes, the protagonist was about as far from empowered as they come. Surprisingly, a deliberately simple move-set rendered him neither helpless nor hopeless, all the while maintaining a constant sense of peril as he moves from puzzle to puzzle.
The environments also do well to promote Limbo’s ominous undertones. A completely desaturated color pallet is the new hotness in terms of videogame presentation, but its clever use of light and shadows is arguably more interesting. Darkness not only subverts the player’s expectations of what lies ahead, but also signifies varying degrees of danger. Sharp pointy things sticking out of the blackness are easy scares, but the menacing children hell bent on murdering the player are far more terrifying. Limbo isn’t scary in a “dogs through the window” sort of way, but in a more cerebral manner where the creepiness or unsettling mood never leaves. The moments of reprieve are brief because the nightmare isn’t supposed to be over after you’ve accomplished something.
Limbo also prides itself on its ability to transform familiar mechanics into an otherworldly and surreal experience. Chase sequences, threats of electrocution, gravity puzzles, water hazards, chasms, room shifting, and giant machine guns are basically prerequisites of 2D platforming, but Limbo employs their services via rather imaginative instances. Their places as obstacles are obvious, but the player’s drive to overcome them is a bit more behind the curtain. Limbo is very good at presenting danger, and making the player approach each instance with a fearful but curious caution is its best trick. Malicious spider legs peeking out of the darkness is scary, but they’re god damn terrifying after you’ve severed four and then get to watch what’s left of the spider scramble after you. Likewise, bear traps can be both friends and enemies. Like Nier, the constant reliance on shifting a box to solve a puzzle was a drag, but did little to sour the experience.
I’ve already touched on this a bit, but Limbo could easily be defined by what it doesn’t have. Boss fights wouldn’t make sense in the context of the world, so they don’t exist. Narrative might not have hurt, but its purposeful exclusion renders the player’s interpretation of what transpired as a far more personal experience. The ending, which I dare not spoil except to say it reminded of the last ten seconds of the Sopranos, provides far more opportunity for speculation than a neatly wrapped package or pretentious sequel tease. Limbo’s considerably short length doesn’t jive with the price point very well, but Limbo, from the standpoint of its mission, was exactly as long as it needed to be. In all likelihood the price point was Microsoft’s initiative to create a constant $15 stream for their entire Summer of Arcade lineup. Either way, great game and thus far the best from the crop of summer releases, retail or otherwise.
