Ah, PlayStation Plus. You are both good and evil… You let me have the opportunity to play games I would never otherwise buy… like Limbo! Well okay, so maybe I already had it through a Humble Bundle at one point, but that isn’t the point!
In Limbo, you play as a boy stuck in a world of darkness. You travel through this world solving various puzzles and facing a large variety of obstacles. At times, you may even find yourself facing some of your fears (spiders…). It’s a simple premise to a game. There’s no narrative, you are just stuck in the world and need to get through it.
This game is part puzzler part platformer. Some puzzles will require you to platform at just the right time while some will require you to figure out how to place things right. I ended up pulling up a walkthrough for the title not too far in just because I got stuck. A particular puzzle required me to backtrack a bit to solve it, and I wasn’t really thinking about doing that. Hey, it’s hard to notice certain elements in the darkness!
While there is, fittingly, not very much music, the sound effects are on key. Special effects – namely the extremely large ways you have of dying in Limbo – are spot on however. Sometimes, at least in slightly brighter areas, you can even make out how completely awful the death looks. Awful in the good sense of course!
Now, if I’m praising it, why didn’t I like it very much? I just couldn’t get that interested in it. This was another one of those titles I had heard high praise for and I think I just let that hype get to me. Another reason is probably the fact I ended up having to pull up that walkthrough and just used it for the rest of the game. Perhaps I just wasn’t thinking everything through, but a large amount of the puzzles just stumped me.
Is Limbo a game folks should play though? Yes. Even if I didn’t like it very much, mainly just due to not getting that into it, I feel it’s something others should play. Fortunately it’s available on a decent amount of platforms for play, should you wish to do so.
Limbo Review Score
3.5/5
