Universal LIMBO (by Playdead)

Well 30 something minutes in and I'm loving Limbo. The puzzles are perfect. I don't feel overwhelmed yet I don't feel like its a cakewalk either. I don't understand how these puzzles could take away from the experience. They fit so perfectly.

Yes this is my first time playing the game. As I've gotten older I just don't have the time to tie myself to a console to game and rarely the PC/Mac. It's great playing this on my 4s. Not a single issue this far.

This is definitely a thinking persons game with enough tension that it feels like a bit of a horror game. I'm not a fan of traditional horror games and this isn't exactly that, but that tension is just perfect. Especially with every sound enveloping me from my earbuds.

So far, I'm more than happy with the purchase. I'm glad I stuck with my gut. I see why so many people are gaga over Limbo.

 

Aaaaand I'm reminded of the fight for equal rights... Thanks...

 

I thought Limbo was a great game and the port was absolutely top teir. In fact, I can not think of a better ported game on the AppStore.
It is a physics platformer. A genre I'm not normally a fan of. The art style is "contre-jour", an aesthetic style I appreciate greatly.
I say this to preface my next comment.

I believe Joseph does not like puzzle platformers, perhaps puzzle based games at all. In all the puzzle games, that I have played, trial and error is a staple of the genre. Without it you would just be moving through a digital world. Not that I'm against that. A game like Home does just that and very gracefully.

"'Limbo' Review - An Incredible Atmosphere that is Tainted with Frustrating Puzzles"
The title of the article is somewhat telling. Any puzzle that is challenging is inherently "frustrating". If there were none, it would be hard to place this game in the genre it was in.
This is all just my opinion / conjecture from what I've read. Much like Joseph's 3 star rating, I could be wrong.
With all the negative response to the article and particularly the rating, in defence of the review, it was well written and it was obvious he had given more than a passing glance to the game. I appreciate that his opinion differs from the majority. I question whether he was the right person for the job. And in closing I agree that a paragraph and alternate rating from another reviewer at the end of an article would greatly add to TA's reviews.

 

Whether or not a review is relevant should not be based on whether or not it mimics the feelings of the majority of players. That's like saying that someone rating Angry Birds 3 stars makes the review irrelevant because of how many people like that damn game.

Saying that an opinion doesn't count when it's not in line with 'the majority' is some of the most backwards ass logic and closemindedness around...

And saying that the hundreds of people, if not thousands, that will not click with this game aren't relevant is incredibly insulting to many people. Even if you don't agree with the review, outlooks like this should spark some sort of outrage. It's no wonder Jared jumped on it.

While I'm done with this thread... I do hope some of you take a step back and re-evaluate what it is that you're really saying about this review (which again, is one opinion out of MANY, TA is not the ONLY review site out there).

Ridiculous...

 

Allow me to rephrase myself. It isn't relevant to the majority of people. If that's what TA aims to be, that's fine. I guess I just didn't realize that. I also never said that people who don't like a game "don't count", nor did I say anything at all about them in fact. I was just under the (possibly false?) assumption that TA aimed their front page articles at the majority of their readers. You need to take your angry pills I think...

 

When you have to rephrase yourself, you shouldn't be able to accuse me of reacting poorly or 'need to take angry pills'

Especially when your exact words were 'A review that only reflects (or predicts) the experience if 1-5% of people is pretty much an irrelevant, and as I've said, a bad review.'

 

Fair enough, though I did say "pretty much" I realize that's vague.

 

So if i m gonna give my Ferrari to my 9 years old son to test it and he is gonna said that is a difficult car to drive, i must listen him, because everyone has the power of his opinion? Of course yes… But who logical (and professional) man doing that?????

 

But Lebron isn't better on football (soccer) scoring than Messi…

 

Basically what I see is the 8.8 trope in absolute full effect here.
Metascore? Thats an arguement here?
Come on guys, a review isn't going to kill this game's chances of sucess.

 

So you mean that Joseph is your best puzzler there? Ok then hands up!

Edit: I am not saying that I am not agree for the majority of his opinions.

 

That says alot. Devs and gamers are fully aware of how much their metascore affects their sales. Concerned and aware are very different things.

As a site which carries significant weight in the gaming community the reviews stand for something larger than the individual reviewer.
It puts TA's stamp on the game. Usually when you pump out 4 - 5 star reviews of anything representing quality the review could be backed up with TA's premise of being a IOS game discovery site.

If TA remains focused on just recommending games via fluffy reviews then fair enough. If TA wants to get critical than fair enough. If TA wants to go to scoreless reviews than fair enough. As it stands at the moment it's confusing to know what the site's objective is with its reviews.

 

Limbo will be fine I'm sure
Feel bad for the next indie team who releases a game with frustrating puzzles though

 

This.

Eli, if you care about your reputation as a review site, you should at least concern yourself with how you appear on there.

Do you believe the translation of TA's score is fairly represented with the 60 shown on metacritic?

Your site is listed there as an aggregate, I am pretty sure you can ask to be removed from the rankings there if it doesn't matter that much.

Until then, anyone reviewing Limbo's iOS reviews is going to see, currently, 17 positive reviews and one review that is 20 points below.

If a 3/5 score isn't a 60, then is it that difficult to adjust so your reviews are more consistent there?

As for Joseph's credentials, just as I showed with Armond's Toy Story 3 review, sometimes I wonder if people like being harsh in reviews of critically acclaimed games just because.

I think the overwhelming response from the comments along with your and Jared's participation in this thread says a lot, no matter how you intended it.

But I should have been prepared, as I've thrown away a significant amount of money on games that have been lauded with excellent reviews here, and have seen some of the better games get middling reviews. It's disappointing for us.

Hell, I've been here for 3 years now and I don't see that stopping because of one off review, but with well over 250 comments on an article (when the average is about 10-20) and this here, it's telling and it is surprising that someone so experienced isn't able to overlook issues that are very much his own and not consider that the process is something that his dislike puts him in the minority of.

But even considering everything, a game built this solidly with very inventive puzzles is more than a 3 star game.

My wife, who hates violence and such, still can look outside of the fact that she doesn't like, say, Pulp Fiction, and is still able to see the reasons that it deserves the accolades it has received.

Limbo is an excellent game. A game that sits next to Fez, Braid, World of Goo and the like as the defining "Indie" games this generation.

 

Andsoitgoes, gotta say that was one of the best posts I've read on here in a while. Lost_Deputy as well. Kudos for some very well written and thought provoking words. I don't think there was one thing I can disagree with. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But there's nothing wrong with disagreeing with an opinion. We are all entitled to review what reviewers write as that determines their worth in our process of this wonderful past time of gaming. Unfortunately for us not every site is going to welcome being subject to critique.

....

Back to the game. This has turned into one of the best gaming nights of the past few years. Man I love this game. It's so much better than even I, a fan of the genre, expected. I just love the suspense. "What is going to come after the little dude next?", is what echoes through my mind. No spoilers. I'm experiencing this on my own.

 

I have seen the chain of events unfolding after the review of LIMBO, and while I do not want to make matters any worse than they already are, I thought I'd weigh in with some personal opinion.

First off, TouchArcade used to be my go-to site to get mobile game reviews. This started more than two years back and I religiously checked the homepage every day to see the games reviewed. Occasionally, if I came across a game that was reviewed and I had already played, I may find some differences in ratings and opinions, but generally this was far and few between.

Then, an incident about a year back lessened my faith in TA reviews by just a bit. Seemingly, Dead Trigger was rated as 2/5 out of spite. But I put that aside as a one-off thing, and I still religiously followed TA's reviews. Then, a few months after that, it reached a tipping point.

In between, the reviews started getting more lackadaisical and erratic, but the final straw was when a seemingly stoned-out Brad Nicholson gave God of Blades 5/5. At the same time, SMAMC got 5/5 despite the fact it was very much similar to its predecessor and that the game was now freemium and filled with IAPs.

After this, I never religiously followed their reviews. Also, at that time, the way the TA crew defended the God of Blades review was just hilarious, and well, substanceless. IIRC, they said it deserved 5 stars just because it was an impressive audio-visual experience.

I still checked back TA once a week usually, to see anything interesting, but wasn't an avid follower.

Recently, about 2 months back, they hired a bunch of new writers...and well, by hiring so many at once, whatever little interest there was in reading reviews totally died down. The variance and differences in their ratings was totally out of hand, but the crew managing TA seemingly couldn't care less.

Now, we come to Limbo. I really literally choked when I saw 3/5. The less said about this particular review, the better. I do to a certain extent agree with the writer, but I think both his reasoning and ultimately the final score were below-par. I agree that Limbo fizzles out to the end and the puzzles get ridiculous to the point they make no sense, but I'd have given it 4/5 easily and considering the inflated ratings TA gives to lots of mediocre games, it should have been 4.5/5 if TA ever cared about consistency in its ratings.

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TL;DR: It is my most sincere opinion that the TA crew must take more pride in their reviews and their accompanying ratings. TA is the biggest mobile gaming news and review site. That is in itself a huge responsibility to your million or so readers, and that is not something to be taken lightly. I have a feeling though that the one thing keeping TA alive now is the forums...if somebody like PG or 148 starts their own forums, I guess that'll be the end of TA.

To me, TA is like IGN to PC and console games. IGN may have questionable reviews at times (especially for AAA games), but they have a level of consistency they adhere to, and the respective reviewers only review genres which they are fond of and have experience writing in.

Take care everybody and my apologies for the exponentially long post. Never intended for it to be this long when I started.

 

why banned? most of his post was just an honest opinion and he clearly a long time TA follower.