LIMBO is worth all 1200 Microsoft Points its being charged for. If you are looking for mind bending puzzles with an amazing presentation this game has it. A puzzle platformer by nature like Braid and Winterbottom it has a big mountain to climb in terms of expected quality. LIMBO shatters the expectation set upon it with the quality of a triple A title and not a lazy copycat.
The game is set mostly in a forest and to go beyond that would ruin it all. You play as an unnamed boy who has no characteristics except his bright white eyes that shine through the darkness of this title. Your opposition takes form in many things like creatures, humanoid figures, and saw blades. Though the puzzle of what your running from or tricking is a puzzle in itself. There are creatures that resemble mice but are not mice in any form we'd recognize. LIMBO throws you into this world as lost as the silent protagonist and lets you figure out the mystery. Braid ended up giving hints with its stage titles and Winterbottom had a hand ready to grasp when needed but LIMBO just abandons you in the darkness.
Chapters are seamless and the constant checkpoints after completing puzzles in your path are your only marking of progress. It's a great decision to have the game flow with no breaks besides your own failures. Without pause between situations your guard takes longer to be let down because not all puzzles within the shadowed world end immediately.
Fittingly there is no soundtrack to this game and only a few sound effects are present. The lack of a soundtrack is actually not a hurt on this game as distracting music would probably have most players muting their television in this instance. I'm a sucker for great game music but the lack of it instantly sets the mood in this title and pulls you slightly into LIMBO's reality.
The lack of music goes right along with the game's very moody graphics. Little light is available in the game but the darkness isn't a roadblock in your path. The darkness actually serves to form the shapes of this world and for a change acts as a guide instead of a deceiver. What the player does get to see is a beautiful and haunting world, a world abandoned to the wild the game never has a pressing need to say why.
