Review: [PC] Limbo

Witcher1979

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I finished this little indie game last week and I totally loved every second of it. The game seems to have no story at all, you just wake up and you are on your way. Some people might think why does the game have no story, well the game is based on one thing and that is survival. You wake up in this weird place and you just have to survive. It has these really nice black and white graphics with what I guess you would call a film grain added to it like on old Sci-Fi movies. It also seems to have very little in the way of music, in some scenes you will get a heavy bass note which goes with what is on screen, but most of the time all you can hear is your own footsteps/wind and some animals/insects in the background. It is done in such away it really sucks you into this strange place where you really feel for the little guy and really want him to survive.

The game imo is best played at night in the dark with headphones on, it really sets the atmosphere this way. I hate spiders and this game does feature spiders, the very first time I saw this thing in the dark it sent a shiver down my spine, I hate spiders that much :)

The game itself starts of pretty easy with puzzles being pretty simple, but as the game continues I actually found a few puzzles that had me totally stuck and I had to resort to cheating and looking on youtube, I hate doing this but I did find a few later puzzles that hard to work out. Other people on other forums have also said the same thing.

I would not attempt to play this with keys I found the game was much better with a 360 pad. The game itself has no graphics options to tweak, it is DX9 and is locked at 60FPS. It auto detected my 1920x1080 display as well. Not sure what it's full price is but on Steam, it is normally in the sales for £2-£3 so it really is a total bargain.

I have this game on Steam but it seems it is coming to retail in a special collectors edition at some point so I will be picking this up as I have a fetish for boxed games:

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,8...aerz-Update-Preis/Rollenspiel-Adventure/News/

The game itself does not have many bad points I can think of, pretty much everything on this little game is spot on. But three points stick out for me that are bad.

1) Some of the puzzles seem a bit to hard to work out
2) The game is short, and I mean short. You could do this in 2-3 hours, I did it in around 3. But then again it is cheap.
3) The ending, well it just ends :)

Few screenshots of the start of the game, I forgot to take random shots during my playthrough last week.









These are the system specs it needs to run:


    • OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7
    • Processor: 2 GHz
    • Memory: 512MB
    • Hard Disk Space: 150MB
    • Video Card: 5 years or younger. Integrated graphics and very low budget cards may not work. Shader Model 3.0 required
    • DirectX®: 9.0c
 
how cool are those graphics!! it looks very different, methinks i shall have to take a look into this!

thanks m8, and this is why the review section works, i've never heard of his:)
 
This is one of the small benefits of Steam. They quite often showcase indie games such as this.

A great little review of a great little puzzler. I'm still stuck on it :Doh:
 
I completed it a couple of times, it is a very cool and dark game (literally too!).

Have you checked out the hidden level?
 
I played this game on my XBOX 360 and loved it. :) There actually is a story but it is very basic. The boy, who you play, is searching for his sister who has gone missing. He ends up in Limbo trying to find her.

This is most definitely a puzzle game and some of the puzzles are rather difficult. I was fortunate enough to be able to figure out all of the puzzles without cheating, but some of them took quite a bit of time. Of course, figuring out the puzzles yourself extends the game play time quite a bit. :)

This is a game that I really wanted to get when it first launched on the XBOX 360. Unfortunately, it was priced too high and I waited to purchase it when the price was lowered. One of the really bad parts about these types of Indie games on the X360 is that the price almost never goes down.

I've thought about getting back into PC gaming because the games are so much cheaper! It's almost worth having to buy a new video card every few years just to get the less expensive games.

Nice review!

Heather
 
Yep me too played this on the Xbox 360 last year and loved every minute of it.

Excellent 'nightmare' graphics and really do look fantasic!

Amiga port anyone?
 
I played this game on my XBOX 360 and loved it. :) There actually is a story but it is very basic. The boy, who you play, is searching for his sister who has gone missing. He ends up in Limbo trying to find her.

This is most definitely a puzzle game and some of the puzzles are rather difficult. I was fortunate enough to be able to figure out all of the puzzles without cheating, but some of them took quite a bit of time. Of course, figuring out the puzzles yourself extends the game play time quite a bit. :)

This is a game that I really wanted to get when it first launched on the XBOX 360. Unfortunately, it was priced too high and I waited to purchase it when the price was lowered. One of the really bad parts about these types of Indie games on the X360 is that the price almost never goes down.

I've thought about getting back into PC gaming because the games are so much cheaper! It's almost worth having to buy a new video card every few years just to get the less expensive games.

Nice review!

Heather

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that does help to explain the ending, well if you can call it an ending. I did wonder, thanks (y)
 
I think anyone who enjoyed Limbo would also really enjoy Braid. There was one puzzle in Braid that I just couldn't figure out so I had to look it up. A very fun game.

Heather
 
Limbo is incredible, has that Another World feeling of the player truly stuck in an another world. There's no hud, the puzzles are based on the environment and it's inhabitants...
The bad thing is, that the game end didn't really anwser anything :(

Braid is another thing, if fools you into thinking it's a simple Mario-style platformer story but then gets REALLY mature.
 
Limbo is incredible, has that Another World feeling of the player truly stuck in an another world. There's no hud, the puzzles are based on the environment and it's inhabitants...
The bad thing is, that the game end didn't really anwser anything :(

Braid is another thing, if fools you into thinking it's a simple Mario-style platformer story but then gets REALLY mature.

Braid downloading via steam and review incoming when it's complete. Unless someone beats me to it. I do love indie games. I could play them all year instead of blockbuster AAA titles.
 
Yep totally agree there Witcher and as Heather says - Braid is great too (music in Braid is just beautiful!).

Great review by the way (y)

I'm loving the retro revival with these types of games and although I haven't completed Limbo yet (I usually only play games like this for 15 / 20 minutes at a time to stretch them out sa I'm always wanting to keep a pile of "pick up and play games") but I LOVE it!

The other one which I like is Trine - which for me is another throw back to proper gaming hehe :)

cheers

John
 
Yeah, I find this game easier with a pad :) Lots of puzzles johnim, some are pretty damn hard in some places. Love the game though. Do you have a steam account johnim? if so whats your id?
 
yep mate guess what it is

tried that justin died about 20 times there give up for tonight
 
yep mate guess what it is

tried that justin died about 20 times there give up for tonight

If it is the part I am thinking of, you take the box to the left of the water, you climb some trees a little to the left of the water then you get to push a branch down which will cover the water.
 
got a lot further now stuck on some pipe swinging after a buzzsaw after the hotel lights. give up for tonight loads of puzzles in this and im glade you just respawn.(y)
 
Okay I'm stuck by the railway cart and the two blocks in chains...

Mmm let me see...

---------- Post added at 23:17 ---------- Previous post was at 23:00 ----------

ahh done it , clever :)

now some pipes..
 

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