Limbo

After an unfortunate lack of 3 red rings of death on my Xbox this past month, I have been unable to come up with a good enough reason to buy the shiny new 250GB console (It’s shiny?). As a result, it’s been a relatively cheap month for me, also thanks to my evasion of the shiny new iPhone 4. Also shiny.

There’s usually a mild enough cause to spend £40 on a game per month, but nope, I’ve not done it this month, no siree. Well, I did buy Beatles Rock Band, but it was £50 for the whole thing, and that is practically theft. All I need now is friends to play it with.

Despite my best attempts at staying frugal, some Danish bastards released a game called Limbo last week on Xbox Live Arcade. I normally stay clear of games on Arcade, but Limbo caught my eye, at least the reviews did. Limbo has received universal acclaim, even from The Daily Telegraph and The Independent, and for good reason, it’s the best thing to happen to gaming since…well, Red Dead Redemption, but we are seldom given a game like Limbo.

Games like Red Dead and Call Of Duty, as good as they are, don’t really require any serious intellectual input, just reflexes and a lack of anything better to do on a Saturday night. Even with a very simple premise, you need to use your brain to play Limbo, and progressing past a particularly taxing obstacle is just as satisfying as getting a kill streak on COD or burning your copy of Star Wars: Force Unleashed.

While there are many positives to take from Limbo, there are a few nuances, and you can argue that it’s just an Arcade game and I shouldn‘t have such high standards, but by pricing it at just over £10 you are setting a high standard. Perhaps I’m just being a pathetic cheap skate, but you can pick up Bioshock for a tenner.

Everyone seems to have gone ape shit for the creepy black and white atmosphere, and while this is a nice touch, it does end up getting pretty monotonous, especially in the second half of the game. I’m not saying jazz it up like Elton John‘s wedding, but there just aren’t many memorable moments by the time you reach the end, and perhaps a soundtrack could have injected a little bit more tension and excitement.

The game is effectively split into two halves. The first has you overcoming enemies while the second has you overcoming puzzles. This structure doesn’t work very well, and in many ways the second half seems like a bit of an anticlimax. You see a giant spider within the first 30 minutes, yet see nothing nearly as spectacular during the remainder of your macabre journey. Perhaps saving the spider until the end would have made for a better ending?

The game doesn’t last long at all, and you can’t help but feel cheated when you have paid less for other Arcade games like Peggle (more addictive than heroin (probably)) and got days of play out of them rather than hours. Maybe quality is more important than quantity, but there is a balance to be made.

Don’t listen to me though, I just said “it’s the best thing to happen to gaming since…Red Dead”, and it’s true, despite the flaws, you still have to play it, and anything that encourages you to use your brain should be commended. It could start a new genre of games along with the likes of Portal, maybe they’ll call them thought ‘em ups?