Limbo was released on XBLA today kicking off Microsoft’s “Summer of Arcade.” Limbo is a highly anticipated indie title and has already won quite a few awards (it’s already a critical darling on Metacritic with a 92), so I immediately picked it up and played through the first hour or so.

Limbo sums up it’s premise best by saying, “Uncertain of his sister’s fate, a boy enters LIMBO.”  You play the boy and enter into a sinister and eerie grayscale world.  I was shocked to find that the game has absolutely no tutorial, pop-ups, or introduction to speak of.  The sentence above is more exposition about the story than I have gotten in-game thus far.  The game is a puzzle-platformer and is simple enough to control and play, but the game’s puzzles can be tough and I’ve already died pretty frequently in my playtime.

The game looks even better in motion than in still screens.  The art direction is superb and the ambient and sparse sound design crafts an eerie and malicious atmosphere.  While the game has yet to tell me anything about Limbo, the visuals and sound paint an incredibly immersive world.  The game is really well designed (despite the lack of a tutorial which isn’t a big deal since it maintains the integrity of the world) and really focuses on figuring out how to overcome the obstacles and surprisingly violent deaths that can befall you in Limbo.  The puzzle platforming keeps you thinking and luckily there is a very forgiving respawn/checkpoint system.

The bottom-line is that you should immediately download and buy this game to experience the unique world of Limbo.  The art and sound design is superb and the story/world is intriguing despite having no exposition whatsoever.  The game is a lot more mature than I originally expected and everything is excellently animated.  My fingers are crossed that Limbo has a spectacular finale to its compelling concept.

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