Remember the first time when you played Super Mario Bros. on the NES, and you had to figure out the game’s mechanics all by your lonesome self? Well, LIMBO is quite like that, only with less color fidelity.

As you press the Start button, you are whisked into a black/white/grey afterthought of a barren forest. Why are you a little boy? Why are the sole people of the land trying to kill you with blow darts? Who keeps leaving these goddamn bear traps on the floor hidden in the dark? What is up with these gears and machines in the background halfway through the second hour? These are the questions that you ask yourself while traversing the 2D plane of LIMBO.

All you need to know is the simple synopsis: you need to find your lost sister in this new land. The rest of the weird stuff is up for you to figure out on your own. LIMBO succeeds in just showing more than telling. True, a few of us could use a clearer explanation of what’s going on, but I feel that the title speaks for itself.

You will come across a lot of puzzles and pitfalls here, be it jumping for dear life away from a huge spider to fiddling around with rotating rooms, hidden deathtraps, and white slugs that force you to move in a single direction. And yes, you will die a lot. However, there are a lot of checkpoints, so death is more of a slight inconvenience rather than an arduous punishment that brings you back all the way to the beginning of a stage.

The combination of visual and aural gratification, coupled with simple controls and a learn-as-you-play presentation and gameplay is what makes LIMBO a stellar piece of 2D platforming entertainment. It’s heavy on the difficulty, yes, but the answers to these puzzles are craftily hidden that it isn’t so obvious. That sense of accomplishment is felt as soon as you tackle one tough segment after another; this isn’t a game you can rush blindly without thought.

Having said that, LIMBO comes witha  high price for a game you can finish in a day and not go back to again. In essence, it’s the same conundrum a game like Braid faces; if you wish to play an artsy-fartsy-like game, you have to fork out “atas” level prices. Perhaps LIMBO’s easier to swallow if it were a tad cheaper.

You definitely need to experience LIMBO’s majesty, since it’s a clear-cut case where a game shines when it’s not blaring words and exposition in your face.
Verdict: 9/10