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Video game reviews: ‘Limbo’ and ‘DeathSpank’
This summer, console gamers have been blessed with not just one, but two must-own downloadable games, both costing only $15 and packed with enough entertainment to give you at least a half dozen hours of solid, fun gameplay.
“Limbo,” a dark, starkly beautiful game full of well-paced puzzles and platforming and “DeathSpank,” a frenetic, amusing hack-‘n’-loot adventure game, are completely different in almost every way. But, as I alternated playing them over the last few weeks, I found they were the perfect complement to each other, like watching a season of “Mad Men” and cleansing the palate with episodes of something more silly, like “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”
(Full disclosure: I’m currently watching “Mad Men” in between watching episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.)
“Limbo,” available only for Xbox 360 at the moment, is perhaps the better of the two games simply because it ambitiously tries, and succeeds, to go beyond traditional video game mechanics to create a unique mood and sense of place. By that measure, it succeeds wildly. The game is black and white and its grayscale look is as evocative as its simplified silhouetted character design. It’s perhaps the most artsy console game since “Braid.”
In the game, you control a young boy, side-scrolling to the right, across a dark, creepy landscape full of constant dangers. White light spills in behind dead tree limbs. Fog, at times, obscures the background. The boy appears as a silhouette, but his eyes shine like two small jewels.
Did I mention dangers? They are cruel and sudden. Run too far into a gap in the earth and the boy is impaled on sharp spikes, dying quickly. The boy can be crushed by a boulder, attacked by stones thrown by slightly older, eyeless boys or gored by the sharp, deadly leg of a huge spider.
The deaths are disturbing; the dying boy twitches in some, flails and rolls down a hill in others. While there’s no blood and gore, the deaths are all the more disturbing for happening so suddenly and with little fanfare. But, in a technique video games have used for decades, these deaths and resurrections are meant to teach you how to get past a challenge. Through trial and error, you solve the simple physics puzzles or learn what areas to avoid.
The challenges grow more elaborate as the game progresses, adding new layers to the jumping, dragging and climbing skills you learn. This gameplay is not especially original, but it’s employed in such an original-looking environment and so well-rendered that you don’t mind. It also has a bit of a retro feel, reminding me of games like the original “Prince of Persia” and “Out of This World.”
“DeathSpank,” on the other hand, is a well-designed, but mostly silly romp. In fact, while its gameplay might remind you of “Gauntlet,” it feels to me more like NCSoft’s non-defunct low-budget MMO “Dungeon Runners,” which also had hilarious voice acting and a bit of a mocking tone in regards to other popular hack-and-slash games.
In the game, you play boastful hero DeathSpank (who sounds like like the cartoon version of The Tick), an adventurer who accepts quests from townsfolk and then goes around killing bad guys, collecting look and upgrading weapons, armor and abilities.
You spend a lot of time running from area to area, killing x number of these things to bring back this y object to the z character who set you on the quest. It’s the dynamic of hundreds of RPG and MMO games, but “DeathSpank” has a sense of humor about it, filling your conversations with silly non sequiturs (an early conversation with a non-verbal cow is particularly funny) and the quests with goofy objects. Helpfully, the game keeps a list of all your current quests and separates it according to important stuff you have to do and not-important stuff you might want to do.
My biggest problem with games like this is that for a casual gaming experience, it asks you to keep track of a lot of information and console games are never fun to play when there’s too many option screens and text to follow. I frequently had to get up off the couch to get a closer look at some of the mission text or to make sure I was configuring my weapons and armor correctly in the inventory screen. It felt a bit like a game that had been designed for PC play without an interface overhaul before it was brought to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
That said, the game is a nice diversion with a nice array of weapons and upgrades and an appropriately off-kilter cartoon look. It also offers co-op play, allowing you to team up with a buddy for double the loot-hunting.
It’s a nice antidote to the gothic creepiness of “Limbo.” Both games are worth their modest pricetags, and are even better when taken together.
‘Limbo’ and ‘DeathSpank’
Both rated T for Teen
Both 1200 Xbox Live points (about $15) for Xbox 360. ‘DeathSpank’ also available on PlayStation Network, $14.99, for PlayStation 3.
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