Limbo is the kind of game that immediately inspires one to write something poetic. To hold court on the sheer beauty of the game, casually tossing around art terms like chiaroscuro, commenting on the duality of light and shade, whilst simultaneously comparing it to the era of silent movies, replete with cinematic tricks like depth of field, blur and film grain. But, for once, this reviewer is not going to do that. Because although Limbo practically begs a reviewer to wax lyrical over its importance as a form of art (at a time when the discussion still rages on unabated following Roger Ebert’s un-informed claim, and subsequent retraction) there is still, after all, a videogame underneath its beautiful exterior. And, happily, that demands just as much attention.

Straddling the thin divide between platformer and puzzler, Limbo blends both into a seamless experience, creating what feels like an unbroken series of challenges for the player to overcome. Dropped into the shoes of a little boy, picked out in only his silhouette and two pinpricks of bright white for eyes, we’re given no indication of where he is, why he’s there or what he’s looking for. The accompanying blurb on the Xbox Dashboard suggests the boy is searching for his sister, but this is not hinted at in-game. There are no opening cutscenes, no introductory text, no dialogue of any kind. Just a boy. And a dark wood. And the player’s innate habit of moving inexorably forward.

Stripping out the extraneous detail allows Playdead to focus solely on the purity of Limbo’s gameplay. And it frequently astonishes. Puzzles are surprisingly taxing, requiring a healthy dollop of lateral thinking and a careful analysis of the boy’s immediate surroundings to conjure up a solution. Throughout my playthrough, there were a number of times I sat there for what seemed an age, telling myself I was completely stuck, unable to go on, when suddenly the answer would strike me out of the darkness and allow me to progress. Rarely has the satisfaction of solving puzzles been so rewarding as in Limbo, and it’s only tempered when the next puzzle proves more fiendish than the last.

Sometimes Limbo demands simpler skills, however. As mentioned above, it can also be characterised as a platformer, and at times presents the player with little option but to take blind leaps of faith, hoping that the boy will land safely (with a barely-perceptible rumble in the controller) or manage to grasp the edges of the next ledge and haul himself to comparative safety. In general, the player need not fear such moments; the game is relatively forgiving, with checkpoints plentiful. Death is only a temporary inconvenience. And if you’re anything like me, you will die, a lot. Don’t be fooled into thinking that Limbo’s painterly art direction would rob it of mature content either – this can be a brutal game. Death animations are beautifully done but graphic in nature; walk into one of the whirring razor blades for an example, and see for yourself. A sudden splash of black droplets and the severing of the little boy’s head from his broken body only confirm that this is not an experience for children. But the corpses hanging from trees or lying face down in stagnant pools of water should have already made this abundantly clear. I’ll not even elaborate on the need to drag said corpses around as bait for some early traps… oh yes, Limbo is a dark experience indeed.

The developer’s propensity to keep things simple doesn’t stop it from the occassional set piece, however. These are delivered in typical understated style, but still raise the tempo of the game considerably, and allow the developer to cut loose with some beautiful artistic touches, with clouds of dust, running water and swarms of flies adding a level of detail that makes the production values really shine. And then there are the occassional weather effects; a puzzle involving a maggot, a hamster, a wheel and some broken pipes which triggers a deluge of rainwater is particularly memorable, and exquisitely beautiful.

Limbo does occasionally frustrate; some puzzles feel a little too obtuse, and other sections require you to navigate them through trial and error a number of times before you nail a particularly tricky jump, but by and large the experience runs smoothly, gathering a pace and momemtum rarely associated with puzzle games of this ilk. Your confidence in your ability to progress will increase as you notice the developer’s confidence in its own abilities increase with each subsequent section, in what is a remarkably assured debut from Playdead. Rarely has a game ticked all the right boxes. Many games struggle with the trade-off between form and function, sacrificing one to concentrate on the other. Not so with Limbo; it’s subject matter is perfectly enmeshed with its art direction – beautiful and minimal, but bold and confident. This is the kind of experience that confirms that videogames can still take the medium in dazzling new directions as it comes of age and pushes its own boundaries. Not only is it a perfect downloadable title, and one that I would recommend that every Xbox owner purchase, it’s also an incredibly impressive videogame full stop. You won’t mind getting stuck in Limbo here. The question is though: with a debut effort as jaw-dropping as Limbo, where do Playdead go next?