Limbo of the Lost (review)
Duke Nukem Forever is widely regarded as the biggest failure in video game history. It spent 12 years in development (1997-2009) before the the studio, 3D Realms, ran out of money and had to lay off the entire development team. Legal battles between the publisher and what little’s left of the developer virtually guarantees that the game will never see the light of day.
Less widely known is the other contender for biggest failure, Limbo of the Lost. If you’ve never heard of it, you’re not alone. In development for 15 years, the game started off in 1993 as a text adventure for the Atari ST and finished in 2008 as a 3d point-and-click adventure for the PC. In between, it was a variety of different adventure-type games for the Amiga 500, Amiga 1200, and the Amiga CD32. The studio finally released it to store shelves in 2008, and was almost immediately recalled by the publisher, never to be heard from again. It wasn’t recalled due to buggy code or terrible sales, as is usually the case, but rather because of the original content.
Specifically, there wasn’t any.
Limbo of the Lost was found to be almost entirely made up of art taken from other games, as well video clips from popular movies. Just take a look at the trailer:
Unless you’ve managed to completely avoid anything to do with pop culture for the last decade, you probably recognised a couple of things from that trailer. The video clips are from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Spawn, and the different game locations come from Unreal Tournament 2003, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Sea Dogs, World of Warcraft, Return to Castle Wolfenstien, Thief 3, and countless others. Other stolen art assets come from Beetlejuice, Lord of the Rings, Diablo 2, and Black and White 2. These aren’t exactly the most obscure references, so it’s unsure how they thought no one would notice this. Anything not stolen was licensed from generic stock fantasy art. This is why the game’s concept art and finished models bear absolutely no resemblance. If you want to know more about the stolen art, check out this comprehensive website which explains the whole thing a lot better than I ever could. Even if you’re not in to video games, it’s an eye-opening read.
Thief 3
Limbo of the Lost
Even more shocking is that this wasn’t the first time the same people had been accused of plagiarism while developing the exact same game. Back when it was an Amiga demo, people started noticing a few things similar with it.
The development team consisted entirely of three men. One of them solely composed the music, so blame fell on the other two. In a diplomatic move, the developers placed the blame squarely on people they claimed to have contracted work out to. Unfortunately, in an interview from four years earlier, they claimed something quite different:
The backgrounds are created in 3D GAMESTUDIO A6 , they are textured, lit and then I place a camera at a certain position and grab a still. This becomes the initial background plate.
Even better, at the time Limbo of the Lost was nearing completion, development started on a new game. It was called Dungeon Master 3D, a remake of Dungeon Master, which they didn’t even own the rights to. Then they started threatening to sue anyone who attempted to do the same thing. As a grand finale, they released several screenshots, showing the game was partially made up of art assets taken from Limbo of the Lost. As failures go, it was spectacular.
Before I get to the actual review, here are a few more videos worth watching:
Good luck getting that out of your head.
Now, I haven’t actually played this game, which would normally make doing a review a little difficult. However, in the spirit of the game, I’ve plagiarised several unrelated video game reviews and mixed them all together:
A major goal in any game is to create the illusion of reality, a fact that is especially true for first-person shooters. The whole point of the genre is to put you, literally, in the role of the protagonist. In light of this, it’s surprising that so many games have stuck to a blueprint that breaks the illusion at every possible opportunity, with text-based mission briefings, jarring level transitions, and weapons and power-ups scattered around like decorative furniture. But Majestic Studios has obviously spent a lot of time studying the mistakes of the past. The result is Limbo of the Lost, the closest thing to a revolutionary step the genre has ever taken. Through a series of subtle and artistic design decisions, Limbo of the Lost creates a reality that is self-contained, believable, and thoroughly engaging. And while it may be surprising that no game has utilized any of these ideas in the past, it’s clear that any future shooter will be remiss to overlook them.
The basic premise is that you are a young woman whose plane has crashed on Site B, the second island from Jurassic Park, where dinosaurs still roam free. Your character, Anne, now has to roam across the island looking for some way of getting off the island or at least contacting some help. Thus begins your journey through eight levels of jungle and the occasional dinosaur.
Unlike Majestic Studios’ previous iterations of Limbo, Limbo of the Lost tells one contiguous story. Though you will hop between perspectives of the British S.A.S. and the U.S. Marines, each leap continues the progression of a single storyline. It’s an effective tool. While the story itself–which revolves around stolen Russian nukes and Mid-Eastern terrorists bent on destroying the Great Satan (that’s you and your grandma)–isn’t exactly cutting edge, it’s enjoyable. And more importantly, Majestic Studios finds ways to make you care for every last one of your teammates. Of course, no good guys die in war, right? There aren’t so much “twists” as there are shocking moments in the storyline. You may find yourself in disbelief not only at some of the events that take place, but in the direct manner in which the most startling moments are often told. There are a few too many shell-shocked slow-mo moments that seem to drag to the point of almost being frustrating, but credit Majestic Studios for not backing down from wartime melodrama.
After countless hours spent playing, the great first impression doesn’t wear off. This style of gaming is notorious for being a time sink and for effectively forcing players to engage in repetitive, monotonous gameplay for hours on end in order to make progress. But in contrast, Limbo of the Lost will keep throwing variety at you, and the combat system at the heart of it features fast, visceral, action-packed battles that are fun and intense, whether you’re fighting alone or in a group. Furthermore, Limbo of the Lost finally achieves that long-sought-after goal of many massively multiplayer games, which is to make the player feel rewarded regardless of how much time he or she invests in a single sitting.
I’m still amazed at the way information is presented in this game. While all versions of Limbo have allowed players to dig down into the numbers behind the game mechanics, Limbo of the Lost offers such ready access to these figures that you’ll get a really good sense of how the game is working. Mousing over terrain tiles tells you what the defense bonus is, the resource yield, any special resources (and the improvement needed to utilize them), as well as the ownership of the tile. What’s more, it will even list all the units in the square, their strength, movement, identity and any promotions they have.
The one thing I was puzzled about was the sound in the game. Hearing the original score and all the quirky sounds was great but the voice work is where it fell short for me. For all the love I have for Bill Murray, he didn’t quite deliver the same Peter Venkman classics the way I remember. I know he was reading from a script and it felt like he was reading from a script. Egon, Winston and Ray were all much better though. You could sense the love that Dan and Harold had for this title because their lines were delivered with the same enthusiasm from the films.
Short as it may be, Limbo of the Lost is a fantastic game that should be played by anyone interested in unique, well-crafted gameplay and a witty, whip-smart script. The stand-alone retail release comes with the same price point as the downloadable Steam release, which is about the cost of a night out at the movies. Limbo of the Lost may not last much longer than some feature films, but pound for pound it remains one of the best games on store shelves.
Pros
- Open ended gameplay.
- Enormous gameplay variety.
- Outlets for creativity and imagination are huge.
- Online community is already vibrant and productive.
- Bug free.
- Beautiful graphics that perform well on almost any system DirectX 9 compatible or later.
- Just plain fun.
Cons
- Some of the early stages are a bit dull.
- Interface could use a few important adjustments.
- Players should be able to rename their planets and star systems.
- More space ship improvements would add a lot to the space stage.
- More variety in interaction elements with other races in the space stage would be preferable.
- Inventory management needs work – particularly the ability to sort and organize one’s inventory.
- Allied ships need serious improvements in their durability.
Score
Final Score out of 100: 93%
