Limbo
Bucketloads of atmosphere can't hide my disappointment, but it's not all black and white.
Reminder for reviews: I'm only really going to talk about what stood out to me, so anything I don't bring up is most likely just fine.
If an issue isn't bad enough to detract from the experience, then that's a good thing - just like something not standing out as being noteworthy doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing.
It's perfectly fine for a thing to serve its purpose and nothing more.
MOVIES
- I'm still working my way through my Watchlist on Amazon, although will be taking a brief break to watch Alien: Romulus now I'm aware it's on UK Disney+.
- On the other hand, I still haven't started my 'grand' re-watching of all the MCU stuff, including the bits I've missed, but there's still plenty of time before Doomsday arrives.
GAMES
- Limbo plot summary: A boy wakes up in a forest and sets off to find his sister. (IMDb)
- Limbo is a popular game and so I'm aware that my opinion of it is going to be in a very clear minority, because I didn't enjoy it to the point that I stopped just over halfway through.
- And the reason for that is partly that I just felt like it was dragging on and taking too long to tell its story, even though I'm well aware that it was criticised by many on release for being short!
- I should be up-front and admit that I'm not a fan of trial-and-error/die-and-repeat gameplay, which meant that Limbo had a very uphill battle even before I started it.
- Well-designed games can get around this by giving the player enough information to deal with whatever the game throws at them.
- This is something Limbo does very well for the first 40-45% of the game and the majority of deaths I suffered felt like they were my fault and so I would happily try again to correct my own errors.
- The problem then became the game not really giving enough information and very often practically requiring that you die multiple times per chapter so you can figure out what you need to do.
- As a result, it very quickly started to feel like the majority of deaths were due to the game and how it was designed rather than anything that I was doing wrong.
- There's also the fact that the opening third of the game felt very much like a dark fairy tale, which was highly enjoyable, but then gives way to more industrialised and machine-filled environments.
- That change from feeling like I was guiding the protagonist through a fantasy world giving way to environments existing solely to be more complex puzzles also put me off.
- I did watch a playthrough after I stopped and I'm actually pretty glad I didn't push through, as the later areas looked increasingly tedious and not worth the effort with how little the story actually mattered.
- It doesn't help that the visuals are in black and white either, which felt appropriate for the dark fairy tale woods that make up the first part of the game, but the more industrial areas really could've used some colour.
- How much you enjoy Limbo will ultimately depend on how frustrating (or not) you find the die-and-repeat nature of progression, but the first third of the game at least is pretty fantastic. [6/10]
TV
- Almost finished with the first season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch, which has been good enough so far, although its strength remains just how good this show looks.
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