Limbo's Silent Storytelling

Spoiler Alert: This article includes explicit references to the ending. This game has a fantastic conclusion and if you intend to play it I recommend you don't read on.

Last summer, Danish indie developers PlayDead Studios came out of nowhere to develop Limbo, their first game. It was a downloadable title that was hugely well-received and sold incredibly well, and quickly became one of the Xbox 360's proudest exclusives. However, I look back on my time with Limbo, and I don't see it simply as a 'good game the 360 had', like I would with Gears of War or Halo 3. Limbo was a step further, establishing a place in the 'art game' subgenre, and presented the same sort of minimalist experience people found in Shadow of the Colossus, or I found in Mirror's Edge. Wandering through the dark forest as this boy was no simple task and no ordinary journey, and the more I look back on it, the more I realise how hard it hits.

Looking at the opening titles of Limbo, I think of Lars' Von Trier's horror film 'Antichrist'. In black and white, the screen simply shows the word 'LIMBO', similar to the placards in the film that signal the beginning of the next chapter in the story. The game and the film also share a fondness for silence, and if not that, a lack of music. Where they differ however is in meaning, for while Antichrist tries (and in my opinion, fails) to offer a deeper meaning of morality and man's bloodlust and dominance over women, Limbo does not yearn to put across a message, but rather share an experience of a lost soul.

Let me put this bluntly: if you have not picked up on it already, the boy looking for his sister in the woods is a metaphor, and the word 'Limbo' is not used in vain. Many wonder what was the significance of the ending, and could not find the conclusion. In fairness, it is left fairly open to interpretation, but I will explain the way I saw it. The boy, after waking suddenly in a dark forest, has had to find his way through traps and escape creatures to find something or someone. Traps may best him, and indeed upon failure can lead to his gruesome end, but he keeps coming back until he overcomes such challenges (yes, I believe even the quick respawn after death is significant), and after one particularly large puzzle he smashes through an unseen pane as time slows down. What this pane is made of is not important, because it is not real. He once again opens his eyes, and finds his sister, standing next to an old ruined treehouse in the rain. She perks her head up without turning around, and the game ends. Because not a word is spoken in the entire game, nothing is openly explained, and as such many people do not realise: he is dead, and so is his sister. They both died falling from their treehouse some time ago, maybe minutes, maybe years. This journey has been through the titular limbo, on his way to the afterlife, and it has tested him. The things he has faced are things children see as hostile in a world that is much bigger than them - scary things like spiders and rats, violent kids (bullies), things we are taught to stay away from (dangerous machinery and electrical equipment), things we must learn to conquer as we grow (deep water) and, most importantly of all, loneliness. Not a single friendly life form has the boy encountered, but at the end he has ultimately overcome what he has faced, and he is reunited with his sister. The afterlife he has entered is irrelevant, heaven or hell, as nothing good nor bad is seen, but he finds his sister at the very spot they were separated, and to this end it is concluded.

Look around the internet and there are plenty of other interpretations, and this is fine. If there was a simple explanation, it would have been obvious, and PlayDead clearly wanted people to see the story's ending in their own ways. Some may say the girl has chosen to stay in limbo with him, some say he has entered a shadow world, where he can see his sister but not vice versa (which would explain why she does not turn around); but all involve him facing fear and solitude. What's amazing is that such debate is caused because of people having their own individual experiences with it, some considerably varied, but it is done without dialogue, without any music beyond ambient noise and without colour.

Limbo is an amazing title, one that has certainly broken the mould for Indie titles, and for storytelling. If you have read this and have not played the game, come to it with an empty mind, and take the game for what you will, because it is in giving you the chance to pick up the pieces that PlayDead have massively succeeded in offering a beautifully dark but touching tale.

Reactions to VGAs, and the elusive arrival of Gears of War 3

This is rather late now. I have been meaning to post this considerably sooner, as I actually got up the day after Spike's VGA awards and immediately checked them out on their website, but I have been too carried away either with college work or completing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow to 110%. If you credit the game for nothing else, there aren't many others that allow you to complete it more than logically possible. 

First of all, the one had previously mentioned in my earlier post: the overall game of the year, or 'goatie'. I had dreaded this as much as I had looked forward to it, fearing that either Halo Reach or Black Ops would win it due to popular appeal - though I enjoyed both, they are effectively repackaged versions of their predecessors. However, it seems common sense pulled through and Rockstar's rootin' tootin' six-shooterin' Red Dead Redemption took the title, and as far as I see it, it's well deserved. Sure, I enjoyed Bad Company 2 more overall, but Red Dead was a near-perfect game in just about everything it delivered (the same can't be said for BC2's lackluster campaign), as well as being starkly original in comparison to its entire competition. Rockstar may have stumbled a little on GTA IV, but in exploring fairly untouched ground with Red Dead they have more than made up for it.

Other titles were pleasing to see, such as Mass Effect 2 for Best Xbox 360 title trumping the shamefully broken and uninteresting Fable III, Limbo deservedly taking Best Independant Game and God of War 3 having Best Graphics. There was a perhaps a little bit too much of 'Red dead fever', with it also taking Best Original Score AND Best Song in a Game, and Undead Nightmare winning Best DLC. However more irritating was Call of Duty once again snatching Best Shooter, Halo Reach having Best Multiplayer (worse than Halo 3s, yet beat Bad Company 2's huge and tactical multiplayer experience) and Best Action-Adventure Game's winner being Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. Call me a fanboy if you will, but personally I believe Lords of Shadow should have at least been a nominee for the latter, packing in 30-40 hours of an adventure/hack and slash-fused tale of fantasy and love lost, instead of Brotherhood which was in my opinion a worse version of AC2 with tacked-on multiplayer. 

Plenty of trailers took the stage, showcasing a new Portal 2 teaser and finally a trailer for a new Elder Scrolls. What didn't rear its head was Gears of War 3. It seems that after delay and delay Gears has stopped trying to breed hype, and for good reason. 

If you've ever talked to me about Gears of War, you'll probably have heard my usual speech about Gears 2 'going Hollywood' over Gears 1's depth and darkness. Sure, I enjoyed the game, enough to play the campaign several times and play over 60 hours of multiplayer, but I believe it was a step down for the series, leaving me to wonder whether it's willing to admit for its mistakes in the trilogy's conclusion. In the past, there have been good signs; I read in an interview with 'Cliffy B' in 360 Magazine that he himself admitted to being disappointed with the final product of Gears 2, being too open and lacking the intimacy of the first game. That said, other sources have not put across the same message, mainly in the form of game footage. At E3 2010 we saw Marcus and the gang fighting a Lambent Berserker - yes, looks like there'll be Lambent everything now. Macho and visually impressive though it was, it's not quite the same deal as the ominous first Berserker that Delta Squad meet, creeping through the city crypts. The atmosphere of that mission was unforgettable, but now we're exploring jungles under sunny skies. I've no doubt Epic will deliver in terms of a straight-up third person shooter, and maybe make the story a little clearer, but from the looks of things, we'll never have the grimy feel of the Gears' first outing again.

DICE, I have underestimated you again. Also, VGAs.

If any of you out there are sad enough to pay close attention to my Twitter, you'll know that this week I've been getting fairly irate with DICE refusing to give any dates for the new maps and the Vietnam expansion for Bad Company 2. Harvest Day and Oasis from one of my all-time favourite games, Bad Company 1 are making a return, and as such I became totally impatient with Community Manager Daniel Matros casually smiling and saying 'they'll come in good time'. As it turns out, I should have learnt my lesson from when I was waiting for the BC2 demo to come out for Xbox 360 - as last night Matros tweeted the new maps would come out... the following day. 

So it seems while every other developer around the world that isn't Valve is fumbling about acting as if games are all business and deadlines, there are some who are willing to have a little fun and throw in a surprise or two for their fans. And at the same time making me look like a moronic fanboy, which is fair enough.

They also announced Vietnam will be hitting the cyber-shelves of the XBL Marketplace in three weeks time (Dec 21), so to prepare I watched Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. Verdict: FMJ is better, and Black Ops lifted various scenes straight out of Apocalypse Now, in one case word-for-word. There's tribute, and there's also plagiarism, Treyarch. 

In terms of other big game news, this year's VGAs are approaching. I made a post on it last year, but apart from that I usually wouldn't rate the awards too highly seeing as it's just a show on Spike and not anything too official. However, 2010 has been a hell of a year for gaming, the best I can remember (and probably the best for a long time...) so I'm quite excited to see who comes out on top. I heard on IGN UK's recent podcast that the nominees for overall GOTY, or 'goatie' as I like to call it, are:

- Halo: Reach
- COD: Black Ops
- Mass Effect 2
- Red Dead Redemption

I enjoyed Black Ops, but I wouldn't like it to win simply on principle. We get a new one every year and I don't think it's fair for Activision to swoop in for the millionth time to win it. Halo: Reach greatly disappointed me as a sequel for Halo 3, and I think it took too much of a step back to be a GOTY. That leaves Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead, both of which are fine by me to win. ME2 isn't really my thing, but I respect that decent, upstanding RPG players say it was an absolute masterpiece and I take their word for it. Red Dead I DID fall in love with, and I think it was a real boundary-pusher for an open-world market that's already getting pretty full, and I'd be more than happy to see a Goatie version of it come out next year with all the DLC packs included - no doubt Rockstar would make a sweet deal and make it super cheap.

Once I've played Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, I'll be sure to make a list of my top ten games of this year. There have been more than enough golden titles to have one hell of a countdown. That's all for now, folks, keep gaming.