POSTED 7/6/13


LIMBO

Playdead

Imagine if ‘A Forest’ by The Cure was a videogame.

If you’re finding the concept hard to grasp then don’t. Just get Limbo. Once again it’s our new favourite thing (at least this week – we are a tad flibbertigibbety...)

It’s kinda like an emo version of A Boy and His Blob, but without the blob (WAAAAAAH! We want our blob!!! We’re gonna crank My Chemical Romance and cut ourselves now!!!), mixed with classic 1920s and 1930s black and white Alfred Hitchcock flicks. Limbo looks like nothing else we’ve seen games-wise, but there’s more to it than just bleak prettiness.

You’re plopped into Limbo’s austere world with no instructions, and no story (unless you consult promotional blurbitude, which mentions some uncertainty about your sister’s fate). You can move, jump and there’s an action button for pulling and pushing stuff – that’s it. No scoring, no cutscenes, just gaming. It’s platformer-meets-puzzler, with some absolute head scratchers, and more red herrings than a Chernobyl fish farm. It can frustrate, but when you nail a puzzle that’s killed you repeatedly you and your brain will let loose a satisfied ‘aah!’.

As many will be quite aware, Limbo’s existed for a while on PSN and XBLA. The Vita trip doesn’t add all manner of unnecessary touchy-feely crap, but it scores one huge advantage by default, and that’s the Vita’s OLED screen. A game relying on a palette of black and various degrees thereof could only thrive here, and Limbo does. It has never looked better.

Macabre, enrapturing, gruesome, diabolical and frustrating are just some of the adjectives that flitted through our bonce whilst playing Limbo. Support this now – not because it’s from a wee indie, or because you’re a fan of The Cure craving anything vaguely resembling a fix, but because it’s still one of the finest little games ever.

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