![]() The timing of so many moments is exquisite, objects falling away just as you leap past them, the rare enemies appearing with fear-inducing precision. The difficulty curve, as you explore to solve each area's challenges, is so precise, so perfect, that it feels sentient. Because which of us isn't used to staring at a frozen game wondering if it's crashed or just loading, before Alt-Tabbing and Ctrl-Alt-Deleting to try to get a working PC back? Perhaps this is more appropriate for the 360 where crashing is at least less usual.īut this past, it's hard to level a single criticism at the game. So it's only to some extent that works here. In film and television it would be extremely evocative, as in those mediums I'm a willingly passive non-participant. But it's a surprisingly length of time before this is revealed, and it's something that works almost as well as it doesn't. ![]() What looks like a completely empty scene, some grass in front of the sky, ghosts of trees in the distance, in fact contains a boy lying in the grass. ![]() But it's always simply about progressing from left to right, never with a purpose, and increasingly that begins to feel like the purpose. Instead it's how you interact with the levels that changes. In Limbo you're the same near-helpless boy throughout, with keys to move, and one button to use. Perhaps you reverse time, or invert dimensions, or gain new skills. There are a great many wonderful indie platformers around at the moment, and each defines itself with its unique gimmick. (There's some nonsense about finding your sister in descriptions, but the game certainly doesn't trouble you with this at the start.) Painted in soft-focused silhouetted black and white, sitting squarely between the design of World Of Goo and those weird Eastern European cartoons you'd see on BBC 2 at 4am, its delicacy is breathtaking. It's a side-scrolling platformer, but even that description sounds too busy and over-involved to capture the essence of the game. What I think I love most about Limbo is its faux-simplicity. Which isn't bad for a two-hour indie game. Winning numerous awards, being recognised as one of the best Xbox Live Arcade games ever, and sold over half a million copies in 2010. Originally released for the 360 in July last year, its reputation is long sealed. It both plays wonderfully on the PC, and is a horrendously insufficient port. It is at once immensely simple and intricately complex. It is both a beautiful and horrifying game. Limbo, as it happens, falls into the space between many things. ![]() Having never played the 360 version (despite paying for it - I'm an idiot) I've played it through for the first time and am ready to tell you just exactly Wot it is that I Think. Limbo came out for PC yesterday, available via Steam for £7. ![]()
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