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Console Exclusives We Want on PC – Limbo

Normally, we PC gamers get to lay claim to most of the indie titles in the gaming industry. Amnesia? Check. The Ball? Check. This is mostly due to how easy and cost-efficient it is to develop for the platform. Now, it is understandable when an indie developer releases a game for multiple platforms, since everyone has to make money, and expanding your audience is a smart way to do that. What isn't as understandable, is when independent developers bypass the PC market completely.


Limbo
, an Xbox Live Arcade Exclusive, was released on July 21st, 2010. It’s a brief, 2-3 hour long puzzle platformer with a unique art style. You play as a little boy who wakes up in the woods, and is apparently on a mission to find his sister, according to the description on the XBLA marketplace. The boy and his surroundings are all in monochrome, with black, white and gray being the color palette. The game focuses more on survival when the boy is faced with danger, and uses it’s length to provide variety throughout. Sometimes you’ll be escaping a flood, other times you’ll be resisting the mind control of a suicidal parasite. The story is told not through dialogue or cutscenes, but through the changes in the enviroment, puzzles, and enemies, which may not be clear until the abrupt and confusing ending. Critically, Limbo was a success, with glowing reviews from most major reviewing outlets. The players were far more divided, however, with some agreeing with the critics on Limbo’s quality, and others calling it overrated.

Limbo is a great game to port to the PC, due to the support that PC gamers give independent games. We buy independent games all the time, and putting Limbo on PC would certainly support Playdead Studios. Limbo doesn’t necessarily require more graphical processing power, but more frames per second would make a fluid-looking game even better. Also, not many platformers work well on the PC’s default keyboard due to their precision movement gameplay, but Limbo’s platforming is cerebral rather than reflex, so it would work better on a keyboard than most platformers.
 
 
Limbo is a title that has received no DLC since it’s release, but extra content could be put in the PC version for free. Specifically, an Epilogue to make the ending a little bit less abrupt, and to expand on the story. Since Limbo is only 2-3 hours, the price could be lowered, seeing as it’s been nearly a year since it’s release on XBLA, and $15 is pushing it for 2-3 hours.

Need more convincing? Read our full review of the XBLA version.

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