Limbo vs Braid

With next to no story given, you’d be forgiven for feeling like the game must be pointless, but it is this feeling of being lost and isolated that keeps you wanting to play more. Despite the lack of speech, you feel like you are the lost little boy. You wander through, praying that you’ll spot the next trap before it’s too late. You hope you’ll eventually reach somewhere safe. You hope you’ll find an answer. For such a sparse story, Limbo really immerses you, to a level that Braid never could. After all, a princess in a castle? Yeah, yeah, we all played Mario twenty years ago!

Current statistics show that despite being two years younger, Limbo has outsold Braid. The margin is small but bear in mind that Braid is 800 Microsoft points, with Limbo costing 1,200. Surely this makes Limbo a bigger success and more profitable. Limbo was released as part of the “Summer of Arcade 2010”. Vice President of Microsoft Games Studios, Phil Spencer said, “Our number one Summer of Arcade game is Limbo… by a long stretch”. The Summer of Arcade was packed with awesome titles such as Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, but Limbo outshone them all.

Braid felt like an interesting twist on a 2D platformer, but let’s face it, it’s just building on Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Limbo gave us something that felt like a huge departure from the other arcade games. Edge called it “one of the most tonally distinct titles available on Xbox Live, and one of the finest”. The quirky stylised adventure had a touch of magic from start to finish, and whilst it had frustrating moments it was a highly pleasurable well thought-out game. Amongst the praise was Eurogamer: “the game is engrossing to the finish, and it builds to a beautifully understated ending”. I couldn’t have said it better myself. With a plethora of awards and critical acclaim, this is one game that will not be easily forgotten.

We are lucky enough to be inundated with high quality games these days, but when I look back at stand out titles in the last few years, Limbo is definitely an experience that stands out for me.

Where Limbo is dark and oppressive, Braid dazzles with colourful and now iconic splendour. Each has a rich sense of menace at its core, the difference being that while Limbo defines itself with darkness, Braid has it sneak up on you, hiding its true form until after the game has won your heart. That’s some serious craft, and it elevates Braid‘s direction beyond the hammered-home philosophising of even revered full releases like BioShock, let alone Limbo. Instead, the delicate mystery at the heart of Braid reserves it a place at the same table as Shadow of The Colossus and Silent Hill. A table of both desolate beauty and chin-stroking pretension, yes, but don’t forget that it’s a table that Limbo clearly also wants to attend but doesn’t have a chair at. It scampers around impatiently at their feet like one of the irritating little creatures that pop up throughout its levels.

Of what mystery do I ramble? Well, this is a local Grudge Match for local people, and we’ll have no spoilers here. Note though, I’m not talking about the rug-pull twist ending, inspired as it is. I’m talking about Braid‘s true meaning. The one obtusely hinted at and hiding in plain sight. The one that ties the whole shebang together, linking the title screen to the ending to the puzzles and mechanics themselves. I won’t pretend I figured it out on my own – I looked it up. I’m glad I did though, because knowing the true message and story behind Braid makes it all the more impressive.

Limbo, on the other hand, is purposefully left so open to interpretation that you’re effectively faced with a blank black canvas. Sure, the giant spider could symbolise man’s struggle for acceptance from nature, or perhaps it’s a metaphor for Gary Glitter, and maybe the gravity puzzles represent the peaks and troughs of a depressed psyche. Which is it though? All of them? None of them? Is it just the Gary Glitter one? It is, isn’t it?

All of that aside, Braid quite simply plays better than Limbo. Other games had used time-rewind functions before, but none had ever allowed it to define them so fully as Braid did. Limbo chucks obstacles at you with one way out, and charges you with miserable repetition until you eventually divine the correct solution. Yes, watching the silhouette of the little boy getting mutilated by other silhouettes is hugely amusing, but is it really as amusing as repeatedly stamping on the little hedgehog guys in Braid and watching their tiny faces crease up, or the way their cute fringes flap in the air as they fall? I think not.