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LIMBO: If you don't buy this on Steam, I will feed you to the spider
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I actually thought it was the OPPOSITE of a vagina. Horribly, horribly mutilated or something. Ive spent a good 25+ years avoiding those pictures on the internet of crazy piercings and whatnot, and I thought somehow you may have finally tricked me - in a limbo thread of all places!
But now I see it's a spider.
A cool spider.
... oh, oh God ...
My favorite part of this game so far
Ending spoilers
Totally worth the $15, in my opinion. I'm going to play through it again after some of the puzzle solutions get fuzzy.
you can see flies buzzing over their bodies in the title screen now
Although it's weird to me that
Huh. Gonna have to go look for that now.
Don't make me bring up those Camel Spiders again.
In the beginning it's a forest with dangerous things in it. The biggest enemies are bear traps, a spider, and other children who don't like you. All of these things are strange, but you're not confused as to WHY they are trying to kill you. The spider is hungry, the children don't like outsiders and have had to fend for themselves for a long-ass time. The bear traps were either set by trappers catching things or the children themselves. On some level, you get it, it was all meant to kill, but not you in particular. Yet you still have to get past them all. A world filled with life and death.
After getting past that you get to the middle of the game with all of the rooftops and incidental stuff, like short-circuiting electric signs and giant cogs and buzz saws. These things aren't here to kill anybody, they just happen to be what you have to get past while, at the same time, being deadly. The world itself is getting more treacherous, but still not aimed at you. A world with no life, but still full of death.
And then you come to the end of the game in the giant loud factory setting. Out of no-where, laser-tripped machine guns appear to tear you a new one, along with meticulously placed gravity traps designed make you stumble to your death over time while still letting you make progress. WHAT. THE. FUCK? Now the entire world has a single goal, YOUR DEATH. The very environment was made to kill you, it even messes with the forces of nature and physics to do so. It's only at the very end does our miserable little protagonist come to that realization that he is, indeed, dead. A dead world trying to make you dead.
Of course we all knew this. The game is called LIMBO for a reason. A place for the dead that is neither heaven nor hell. It's obviously not heaven for enough reasons, but nor is it hell because you still have hope that his sister is still there for him, at the end of this dream/nightmare. For whatever reason, he can't let go and this world was made for him, we know this because he is the only one with eyes to see the world, everything else is just a prop. It's a limbo in that he can't stop doing the same things over and over again, seemingly for eternity; e.g., dying again and again as he bashes his head against an apparently insurmountable obstacle, one that can only be overcome usually through a very specific, un-obvious technique. A technique that was not working only because you were 1 degree or 1 millimeter or 1 millisecond off. A truly maddening place. That is, until he breaks out of limbo, literally. Out of there, he finds the last good thing in his life, his sister, as he finally approaches something akin to heaven.
Seems pretty cut and dry to me. :P
BRAWL: 1160-9686-9416
It's such a chill, ambient, scary (at times) game
Very nice. I hadn't thought entirely about what the ending meant, so that cleared some things up.
random observation, and probably discussed to death (endgame spoiler)
but my favorite moment was when you first encountered the girl - the music and visual style just came together perfectly
The game just came out today on PSN. I'm thinking of buying it. Worth $12? (PS Plus price - normally $15.)
Be aware that it's a pretty short game (3 hours, if that iirc), but incredibly atmospheric and engaging.
As for the price, its tough. I personally really enjoyed it when I got it and thought it was worth it, but it is fairly short for a $15 (or even $12) game. It kind of depends on how much you value the artistic style when thinking of buying a game.
Others will say differently, so YMMV.
finally
also fuck the No Point In Dying trophy.
Great game. Great atmosphere. I have to be honest, half the time I was wondering "I wonder if this could have been made in Little Big Planet?" - minus the atmosphere, of course.
I will never even bother trying to do No Point In Dying. I reject achievements like that, for games like this. Because they are terrible.
The last one I tried to do was SURVIVOR (Finish the game without dying in survival mode) for the Xbox Live Arcade remake of Prince of Persia. I got very, very close but never managed it and I swore off "don't ever die" achievements for platformers forever.
I know a lot of people talk about this game representing death, but I have an entirely different theory.
I think, for whatever unexplained reason, the boy was never supposed to be in any contact with the girl. The world surrounding the boy is essentially the manifestation of authority telling him "Don't do this. Don't approach her". The part with the spider represent the initial fear of trying, and the part with the boys represents a more authoritive role of saying no.
Maybe I'm just crazy, but the part with the Hotel really sticks out to me. I think the Hotel was where the boy attempted to make love to the girl, and the shift in the dynamics of the world repents the result of what happened. This is where the world become a manifestation of adult hood. People can no longer tell the boy what he can and can't do, but his conscience, and perhaps the emotions of the girl herself are manipulating the world.
It all comes to an end when you see the Hotel sign again. Dismembered, and gravity completely ignoring the laws of physics. The relationship between the boy and girl has becoming so unstable that reality itself is falling apart, and it's at this point that the boy either must set things right, or die at his failure.
Maybe I've thought this up because the overall game reminded me greatly of my current relationship with my girlfriend. It's been rewarding, but the overall path to get there has been nothing short of turbulent and at worst pretty insane. Anyways, that's my two cense.
Where's the new level for the PS3 version of the game? I have no idea where it is or how to access it.
Yeah, some really good observations. I also like that
I've also heard some theories that the boy and his sister die in a car accident because of the hazardously shifting gravity and the final moment when you crash through the glass
Personally, in terms of looking for a possible definition, I agree with green-eyes above me about 'places you shouldn't go', or childhood fears. As an arachnophobe, I can appreciate the spider being a huge, terrifying thing. You can read it as symbolism, or you can see it as a representation of a more literal fear of spiders, which can follow through into the great many other hostilities throughout the game, like the gang of boys that pursue you like bullies, or (as mentioned) the deadly tools/sawblades.
edit: okay so that's not really analysis so much as it is pretentious guff.
And there doesn't need to be specifics. Like you say, it's the atmosphere that sticks with you rather than specific events (though some specific events might).
I'm sure I'll be the first to say that FUCKING SPIDER FUCK
What a beautiful, beautiful game.
Done.