Standing out from all other games as especially unique is a hard task, but Limbo does it.
Limbo has no real meaning, it's just there to give us this experience. There is no story in Limbo, not really. You play a boy who seemingly landed in a dark, gloomy and deadly forest, no trace of reason and explanation how he landed there. But it's your job to lead the boy through the deadly forest, bypassing the many deadly traps the forest comprises of, with the only moves of the boy being a modest jump and some possible interactions with other objects.
With that, there is never any explanation on what the game is actually about. There is that boy, in that huge, dark forest, and that's it. The further progression makes clear in what situation the boy is, the ending however is also quite mysterious and only let's you alone with speculations on what the heck just happened in the game.
This is of course no reason to run out of the house and plunge to the ground. In fact, the incomprehensible story is just part of that mysterious, special feel that takes part in Limbo. Just as is everything else in the game. One of the most remarkable aspects of the game is it's atmosphere and environments. Where ever you glance at, you will only see black, or gray, and the whole place gives back a real disturbing and death-filled feeling. The game does not contain any other colors, everything, no matter what else is situated in the environment, is drab. Even the little boy himself is a black figure, his glowing eyes being his only noticeable remark. It's a dark, forlorn forest with only little amount on life, but a huge amount on deadly traps and creatures. But the game isn't only placed in a forest, about half through the game, you enter a creepy, ragged factory. What was on life in the forest, including mysterious kids that seemingly also were fighting for their life in the forest, is now all gone. Your left with this factory, which for some reason is still working halfways. What doesn't work however is the light in the factory, it's just as dark and fearsome as the forest.
Adding to the atmosphere is also the sound. The sound design is absolutely fabulous, with realistic sounds that make the environments seem even more deserted. Music does not appear all too often, but when it does, it captures the feeling of the atmosphere perfectly.
In these disturbing locations of course, there must also be puzzles that are disturbing. Limbo does not only have puzzles that must be solved, but much more shocking ones that can happen and appear at very unexpected moments, mostly leading to brutal and cruel deaths. Maybe it's a bear trap that snaps at the boy as soon as he walks over it, and all you see is his head rolling on without a body, or a huge rock that suddenly swings by and crushes every bone of the little boy, it's those moments that shock and wow you, moments where a grannie might as well get a heart attack. But these puzzles aren't only there to shock and impress, but to also challenge your knowledge on solving tricky puzzles. At the beginning the puzzles are still quite easy to solve, but afterwards the puzzles really pick up on challenge and require real thinking skills as well as even some 2D platforming skills at specific situations. And they are fun to solve, about every puzzle seems new again and requires a new solution and new thinking. Also, a definite plus point of the game is the checkpoint system, which places a checkpoint before each puzzle. Which means if you die, and you will die, you get brought back right before the puzzle so you can try it right away again. This is especially good for these unexpected death traps on which you've got no chance to survive without knowing what happens before.
Limbo is a small package made for us, to experience something really unique for a change. It's a short ride through an extraordinary place filled with death traps and clever puzzles. It never does get a 100 % clear what the game is actually about, but it's clear what Limbo is as a video game: a must buy.
THE GOOD:
+ clever puzzles with shocking death traps
+ amazing, spooky and gloomy atmosphere
+ unique and mysterious
THE BAD
- quite short
Review Score: 9/10