Limbo (...the game, not the place)

Although I suppose the game takes place in the.. uh, place. Maybe? I haven't finished it yet, even though I hear it's a short play. I hate knowing that a game is short and awesome ("5 stars, but I wish it was longer!" etc etc), and tend to poke along very slowly once armed with that knowledge.

I love (on the other hand) buying a game outright at the drop of a hat knowing only that "it's good". I had no idea what Limbo was, or what it would be, I just knew that it was beautiful, short, and ten bucks on Steam. I had nothing else to go on than "black and white puzzler". For all I knew it was a gorgeous monochromatic Tetris. I'm pleased to report that was not the case.

This is going to be a pretty shitty "review" of the game, mostly because in my mind I'm tiptoeing around the elephant in the room. The reason I've gotten so much simple pleasure out of the game is because I came into it with so little to go on, and I don't want to spoil that for you. Don't go look up videos or screenshots or ANYTHING. Just go get it. The less you know the better.

Digging around on the web now, I see it was given Downloadable Game of the Year 2010, or some such other awards, but I just don't follow the gaming site newsfeed like I used to. Every once in a while I sort Metacritic by PC games by highest score descending and go down the list and look for anything I don't already know about. I guess this got in under the radar, but probably everyone reading this has already played it.

If, like me, you hadn't yet, then do yourself a favor this weekend and treat yourself. You deserve it. Play it at night, when the kids are asleep. It's available on Steam, or DL on the console of your choosing. I play it on the PC with an Xbox controller, I will ruin one surprise and just let you know that a controller is the preferred method of input. If I didn't have that controller for my PC I would be clunking around with a keyboard, which would significantly diminish the overall ability to just lose yourself in the ambiance of the environment they've created.

Again: treat yourself this weekend. Grab it tonight, and burn through it during the weekend. It will give you something beautiful to reflect on while sipping coffee Monday morning.