It’s not often you’re asked to spend 1200 Microsoft Points for a short, 2D platformer with little replayability. But minimalist LIMBO, with it’s monochromatic art style and two-button control scheme is a game that’s charming in it’s simplicity. Whether this is the game for you depends on how indie and artistic you like your downloadables, but if games like Braid and AndYetItMoves peaked your interest, then this will satisfy similar urges.

You awake in a dark forest, a small boy “uncertain of his sisters faith”. Over the game’s three to four hours you will guide this frail chap across rivers, into caves, over rooftops and deep inside factories. Limbo is a foreboding place full of creatures, people and machines that would love to make you dead. And they will, frequently, as Limbo is a game that enjoys killing you without a seconds warning. Unavoidable death can feel cheap and irritating, but the checkpoints are never too far and at the very least it contributes to the tense atmosphere.

Atmosphere is really what Limbo is all about. With no traditional soundtrack to speak of, the soundscape in Limbo is filled the rumbling and groans of the world itself. Footsteps patter across the ground as your little boy pants and wheezes across the screen, past deafening torrents of water and creaking cogs. The camera pans inwards as if to suck you deeper into his world. Animations are crisp, giving life and personality to shadowy characters. Like a stone dropped in an empty room, though not much is going on at any one time what little does is felt loud and clear.

Not the kind of game you should let your depressed little brother play.

About half way through, Limbo shifts from a natural to an industrial setting with new tricks and much more soliary feel. At this point some of the game’s best game mechanics are introduced, as you’re forced to use gravity and magnetism to solve much lager puzzles. However the mechanical nature of these areas lack the personality of the earlier sections as creatures and humans are nowhere to be seen. Clearly there is something comforting about being chased by a band of “Lord of the Flies”-esque murderous children. Their omission makes LIMBO’s latter half feel a lot less creepy and much more like a puzzle game.

When you eventually work out and execute these puzzles, the satisfaction is immense. LIMBO’s has a degree of refinement you don’t normally associate with a developers first release. Everything from the character movement, to object interactions and physics work perfectly. But unfortunately, then it just ends. It’s not that the ending is unexpected (the game does a good job of letting you know your progress), rather it feels like Limbo is a game that could have lasted a few more hours if the developers played around with the mechanics just a little more. Some of the clever concepts introduced in the latter stages of the game are woefully underused. The vague narrative, though in-keeping with the haunting surroundings, feels a little cheap too.

Perhaps it was rushed to be made eligible for Summer of Arcade, or maybe it’s exactly as the developers intended, but without any bonus or multiplayer modes the single player could and really should have been longer. That being said, time is a healer and this may just be one of those games you re-visit every 6 months. In any case, LIMBO is a quality experience first time around. A seriously clever and great looking game whose faults are only visible against what is a slick and refined gaming experience.

Danny O’Dwyer