It took me three evenings to finish Limbo, and I’m glad to say that I did it with no walkthrough and no hints. In fact, I plan to get all the game’s trophies with the exception of that one that would have you complete the game in one sitting with five or less deaths. That’s crazy talk. During my second playthrough when I’d died more then ten times before chapter ten, I realized that making it through the entire game with five or less deaths was just not gonna happen. There’s also a hidden level that has you jump over a bandsaw in pitch darkness so that there’s no way to know where to actually jump. Not sure if I’ll finish that hidden level. But the main game I’ve completed.

So this is the third and final article full of Limbo hints. Once again, this is not a walkthrough. If you want walkthroughs, get ye forth to YouTube. You’ll find many. But playing without walkthroughs is such a rewarding experience, and you will enjoy the game more. But… for those times when you’re absolutely stuck, I bring you hints. Not solutions, just gentle nudges that may help you figure out the solution without walking you step-by-step through every little thing you need to do.

Something else I’ve just figured out: I think the chapters in the XBox version of the game and the Playstation 3 version of the game are numbered diferrently. I’ll bet they added more checkpoints (chapters) to the Playstation version. That said, since there are no actual numbers applies to the chapters, the numbering may be really confusing. I’ve named the chapters so that you can go by the descriptions of the elements within each chapter rather than counting white blocks.

That said, here are a few brief hints.

Chapter 20: Twin Cannons
Notice that the top cannon moves
It can destroy more than just you

Chapter 21: The Slow-Sliding Block and the Elevator
At the beginning of the level, you will have to use the same technique more than once. Probably more than twice.
You need two boxes to climb the sliding platform.

Chapter 22: Giant Blocks and the Zipline
Note what all the controls are doing
Momentum is helpful in slowing its reversal

Chapter 23: Spelunking Neon
Timing is key. You’ll have to jump _before_ it’s safe.
It’s going to take more than one press of the switch to get that block where you need it.

Chapter 24: Sawblades and Anti-Gravity
Timing is critical. Jump an instant before gravity reverses.

Here’s the second part of the Lungfishopolis Limbo hints extravaganza. Remember – this is not a walkthrough. If you want walkthroughs, there are plenty on YouTube. But I urge you *not* to use walkthroughs. Limbo’s puzzles can be very challenging, but if you can suck it up and just spend some time and experiment, you can figure them out. And it’s very rewarding – you’ll enjoy the game more. But for when you’re absolutely stuck, I bring you hints. Not solutions, just gentle nudges that may help you figure out the solution without handing it to you outright. Unlike part one of our hints, this article covers every chapter, since the puzzles get a bit harder as the game progresses.

Chapter 10: The Flood
That broken box doesn’t need to float any higher.
Look closely at the water levels, and look at what the levers do to change the water levels. Think Archimedes.

Chapter 11: The Parasite
Sunlight burns the parasite and makes you change directions.
The rising water will cause floating objects to move upwards.

Chapter 12: The Hotel
You can see when the electricity is on and when it’s off. Watch the letter H.
The glass is breakable.

Chapter 13: The Bandsaw
You can control your speed when under the influence of a parasite. Slow down and look around.
Notice the handle on the end of that platform.

Chapter 14: The Elevator
You do need that box.
Notice the handle at the bottom of the elevator.

Chapter 15: The Fly
You’ve got an analog stick. Use it.
Be sneaky.

Chapter 16: The Gear
You need two boxes to get up there.
Set that rope to swinging before you jump on.

Chapter 17: The Machine
Pay attention to exactly what the magnet does.
You’ll just have to wait while things move.

Chapter 18: The Factory
You’re safe while you’re hanging on the edge.

Chapter 19: Minecart Ride
The gears take some time to reverse directions. Use this to your advantage.
Make sure the minecart is still rolling a bit uphill when you jump off it.

Because I don’t have an XBox, I don’t have access to XBLA games until they’re released on other platforms. This is why I never got to try Braid until it was released on Steam. When I eventually got access to the game through Steam, I found out just how hard its puzzles really were, and I was eventually forced to look up walkthroughs, and found this. It was that page that motivated me to create the Braid Hints pages that I posted on this site back in 2009. Those pages continue to be the most popular posts on this site. So now that Limbo has finally come out on PSN and I’ve been able to play, I find it apropos to write up some Limbo Hints.
This isn’t a walkthrough – I’m not going to provide hints on each and every level. If you’re interested in walkthroughs, there are plenty on YouTube. but I’d urge you not to use walkthroughs. The game’s puzzles are sometimes very challenging, but if you can suck it up and just spend some time and experiment, you’re likely to figure them out. And it’s very rewarding – you’ll enjoy the game more.

But for those times when you’re absolutely stuck, when you’ve spent a half hour and more than two game sessions trying to figure out what the hell to do on this or that damn puzzle and you’re at your wits end… I bring you hints. Not solutions, just gentle nudges that may help you figure out the solution without handing it to you outright.

First, a few pointers about the game in general.

• Remember your controls. Aside from the jump button, there’s also a button that lets you pull things. The game doesn’t present you the controls explicitly, so if you haven’t realized that you can pull things, you’ll never get past the first chapter.
• You can swing on ropes as well as climbing them.
• If you can’t get past a certain part and you keep dying, then you’d might as well experiment. Sure, you might get killed, but if you keep dying anyway then what does it matter?
• A couple of Limbo’s toughest puzzles involve waiting. It’s hard to do nothing, and it’s certainly not the first thing you’d think to do, but if it makes sense for the puzzle you’re on, give it a shot.

Okay, now some specifics. I’m not going to cover every chapter, because while there are plenty of parts in the game that may have you scratching your head for a few minutes, there are relatively few that have a chance to hang you up indefinately.

Damn that spider! I can't get near him without being speared like a fish, and he's blocking my progress! There's not much to my left other than an unreachable bear trap in a tree, so what am I supposed to do?

Firstly, that spider isn’t nearly so coordinated as you might think. Try experimenting. Risk dying. Play around while you’re close to him and see what happens. Stop reading right now and go back to the game. Only read the next paragraph if you absolutely need to.

If you’ve gotten your hands on the bear trap, made use of it, and still are stuck, you should note that repetition has value.

What am I supposed to do here? To the left, there's an odd machine with a lever that does nothing. Then there's a ramp that I can get to if I jump hard enough and a frog-looking thing hiding under a ridge. Over to the right there's a hanging rope that I can pull, but it doesn't do much.

As you may have noticed when you first ran up, that frog really wants the glowing stuff growing on the underside of the ramp. Know what I call that? Bait. Stop reading right now and go back to the game. Only read the next paragraph if you absolutely need to.

Impact will knock that crap on down for the frog. From there, it’s all about you mustering whatever speed and timing you can. Good luck.

Come back soon for a second batch of hints on Limbo.

So often, I’ll have fifteen minutes at the end of an evening, and I don’t want to start playing Bioshock 2 or Metroid Prime. It might take half of the time I’ve got just to start playing one of those. So what casual games am I currently digging?

Chime Super Deluxe (Playstation 3)

After the Playstation Network came back up following the crash, I grabbed a Playstation points card so that I wouldn’t have to store my credit card info on Sony’s servers. While my main intent was to use it for Beyond Good and Evil HD, I tried the demo for Chime Super Deluxe and found that I really enjoyed the game. And it’s got multiplayer, which I know that my wife and I will enjoy, even if she does kick my ass at the game.

Chime Super Deluxe is a musical block placement game. The blocks don’t fall like Tetris – instead you’re given an irregularly-shaped game board and charged with filling as close to 100% of the board as possible within the alotted time. The music plays, and a vertical line (“the beat line”) moves slowly from left to right. As it passes over the blocks you’ve placed, completed square groupings (“quads”) of blocks are registered in the grid in time with pleasant musical cues, and each quad adds to your completion percentage. Create enough quads between passes of the beat line and you get a bonus.

It’s a very zen gameplay experience, and the music is enjoyable. I hear that there’s even a PC version of the game somewhere out there that includes Jonathan Coulton’s Still Alive as one of its songs.

Plants vs Zombies (Android)

I’ve played Plants vs Zombies a lot. I played it when it came out on Steam and got 100% achievements over the course of two playthroughs. Then they added additional achievements and I played through the game again to get all of them. Recently, they released an Android version of the game, and Amazon’s Android app store gave the game away free for one day, so I snagged it. I’m currently midway into my second playthrough, and I haven’t yet begun to put much of a dent in the game’s achievements.

In the unlikely event that you’re totally unfamiliar with Plant versus Zombies, it’s a tower defense game in which the zombies shuffle from right to left, heading towards your house in five lanes. You plant sunflowers to produce sun, the resource you spend to create more plants. Peashooters and cabbage-pults attack oncoming zombies, wall-nuts block them, and squash do as their name would imply. There are dozens more plants, and many types of zombies. Nighttime fogs obscure the field, the backyard’s pool requires that you place plants on lillypads to stop scuba zombies, and defending on the slanted roof prevents direct-fire attacks. The game’s got more complexity than you might think.

I had some issues with PvZ for a while, but I was able to fix them by backing out updates for Google Maps on my phone. It’s a ridiculous and insane solution since using my phone as a GPS is far more useful than playing Plants vs Zombies, but I’ve written to Popcap about the situaton. What can I say? I like the game.

Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe (PSP)

I have a confession to make. I have an unnatural zeal for Pixeljunk Monsters. After having a slightly above-average reaction to the demo in 2007, I purchased PS3 game, and then the expansion. I played with Linda. I played alone. four years later, I was still playing. I completed every level of the game with Linda. I got 100% of the game’s trophies separately in single-player. Then I found the PSP game, which included an additional dozen or so levels and a game that included extra enemy types and new towers. I’m playing Pixeljunk Monsters on the PSP a lot, and I love the game. My obsession has grown, and it’s nearly the only thing I ever do with my PSP. I do own more games for the device, I just don’t play them.

Hoard (PS3)

Hoard is a fun game, and I still play it, even if I don’t play it as frequently as I once did. I’ve gotten gold medals on all of the Princess Rush levels and on all but two of the Treasure levels. The Hoard levels are all insanely dificult – staying alive for five minutes is a challenge I haven’t yet completed. But with levels that top out at ten minutes, it’s fun to play when I’ve got a few minutes to kill.

WordFeud (Android)

I’d been playing Words with Friends on my phone for a while, but I switched to WordFeud. I like the bonus tile layout better, and having an avatar image is nice. I only wish that they’d disallow you from trying words an infinite number of times until you find one that works. Games with more than two players would be nice as well.

What casual games do you play?

Beyond Good and Evil is possibly my favorite video game of all time. I recently picked up the HD remake on the Playstation Network and happily ran through my sixth playthrough of the game in short order. The HD visuals were nice, but certainly not stunning. There were, however, a few other things I noticed.

Firstly, the camera controls are absolutely horrendous. At times, this makes the game nearly unplayable. In my playthroughs of the PC version of Beyond Good and Evil, I’ve sometimes used a usb game controller, and never have I had this much difficulty looking around in the game. Whomever messed up the camera controls for Beyond Good and Evil HD should be turned over to the DomZ to have their life energy drained.

Secondly, I really wish the trophies had been more stringent. You can get 100% completion in the game without getting all the pearls, without getting all the MDisks, and without getting all the PA-1 units for full hearts. It’s nice that they added a trophy for handing a PA-1 over to Pey’j or Double H, but they could have gotten far more creative with the trophies in the game. How about trophies for getting through the Slaughterhouse or Nutrapils factory without ever being spotted? How about a trophy for defeating a DomZ serpent within 60 seconds? How about for playing the hidden pearl game or redeeming a save game code at darkroom.ubi.com? They could have done so much more, and they didn’t.

Lastly, I can’t count the number of times I tried to navigate menus using the D-pad and found that I couldn’t. Menus are navigated only via the left analog stick, which is annoying.

If you haven’t yet played Beyond Good and Evil, I don’t mean to dissuade you – it’s a great game, and the HD version finally brings it to modern consoles. I just wish that the port had been handled a bit better.

Free Month of Playstation Plus

Is there anyone who actually had a subscription to Playstation Plus? I mean anyone who’s not a games journalist. I understand that people who wanted to report about what the service actually does subscribed just to let the rest of us know what the heck the service was actually good for. Strange that I haven’t heard much.

Looking it up now, it seems that you get early access to demos and some betas, a free subscription to Qore (the PSN thing that nobody subscribed to before Qriocity was around for nobody to subscribe to) and discounts on some PSN content. You also get limited play time on certain selected games. So basically, Playstation Plus was created as a clearing ground for PSN games that don’t sell. You pay Sony every month, and they’ll let you play the worst of the worst, but only a little.

Movie Rentals for One Weekend

I’d forgotten that “renting” movies from PSN was even an option. One time they made Godzilla 2000 available for free for a few days, and I downloaded that, but the movie was so bad that we didn’t make it halfway through. I expect that most of the PSN offerings that they’ll make free are of the same quality. Besides, I’ve got Netflix and Hulu. Will PSN actually make anything available for free that I can’t already get through either of those channels?

Free Playstation Home items

I tried Playstation Home once. It was terrible, slow, and frankly kind of boring. Does anyone still use it?

A Free Game

So here’s the only thing on the list in which anyone will have any interest. Let’s take a look at the five games on their list.

• Dead Nation
  I’ll be honest. I’d never have been interested in this game if it wasn’t free. But if I’m able to get two of these games then I’ll likely pick up Dead Nation. It allows for online multiplayer, which I’ve only ever done before with HOARD. So maybe I’ll contact my brother for some co-op zombie hunting.
• inFAMOUS
  I played inFAMOUS about a year ago, and it’s not a bad game. But it seems obvious that this game was included primarily to sell the uncoming sequel. I won’t be choosing inFAMOUS since I already own it, but it’s not a bad choice for someone who hasn’t yet played.
• LittleBigPlanet
  Similarly to inFAMOUS, LittleBigPlanet has a sequel, and I’m sure that they just really want to sell copies of LittleBigPlanet 2. Still, not a bad choice. The two games are so similar that (to me) there’s not much of a difference.
• WipEout HD + Fury
  I had to look this one up. Turns out that it’s a racing game, which explains why I’d never bothered to learn anything about it. I’ve got no interest in racing games that aren’t named Audiosurf or MarioKart, so I won’t be downloading WipEout HD.
• Super Stardust HD
  When I first got my playstation, I downloaded the Super Stardust HD demo, and it struck me as a very well done bullethell shooter. I’m not very good at games like this, and I figured I wouldn’t get much further in the full game than I had in the demo, so I eventually uninstalled it. But now that it’s a free game on a list of slim pickins, I’ll probably download it.

In addition to the above Playstation titles, those who own PSPs can choose from the four games below.

• LittleBigPlanet
  The PSP version of LittleBigPlanet isn’t going to be as good as the primary PS3 version, and so it might be better to select another game from this list. And as much as my wife and daughter love LittleBigPlanet, I’m not a fan.
• ModNation Racers
  I tried the PS3 demo, and my opinions of this racer are pretty much the same as my opinions of most racers. Pass.
• Pursuit Force
  After reading about Pursuit Force, I’m marginally interested. Since they’re allowing two free games and I’m not interested in LittleBigPlanet PSP or Modnation Racers, I guess I’ll be trying it out.
• Killzone Liberation
  I’ve heard marginally good things about Killzone Liberation. I’m not a fan of shooters on handhelds, but it’s free, so I’ll be trying it. Can’t be worse than that PSP Tenchu game.

Looking at the PS3 game list, we can see that only two of the five games were ever full-priced retail releases. And those two both have sequels. I suspect that many people are in the same boat as me, owning both of those. Many people may also own the other less expensive downloadable titles. So for many, this customer appreciation program is even more of a sham. I’m not going to pretend that Sony’s outage ruined my life, and I’m not going to claim that they were grossly negligent in their security. But it was inconvenient for me even though I don’t play games online, since I couldn’t stream Hulu, and Netflix was incredibly spotty. If they want to issue an apology by awarding people games, at least they should compile a decent list of choices. I certainly didn’t expect them to give us Beyond Good and Evil HD for free, although that would have been awesome. Let’s look at some of the games they might have offered.

• Assassins Creed
  With three sequels, Assassins Creed is now an officially old game, in the same league as inFAMOUS. It seems natural for them to have included it. But I guess that Ubisoft is too DRM crazy to allow anybody to have anything for free ever. It’s too close to piracy. If Ubisoft had let us have Assassins Creed, they’d have had to phone us every 5 minutes while we were playing just to make sure that we weren’t lending the controller to a visiting friend.
• Borderlands
  It’s not a new game, so why not? Gearbox has already earned the bulk of their money on this game. It’s already downloadable on PSN, and including it would have exposed a lot of people to Borderlands who may not have already tried it.
• Dead Space: Extraction
  This would be a great way to try to get more people to use Playstation: Move. If more games used Move, I might be interested in dropping the substantial cash on the 3-part controller you need to use Move.
• God of War Collection
  Of all the downloadable games on PSN, this would be the one I’d most likely choose if it were free. I’ve already played the games on my PS2, and I’d be unlikely ever to revisit them, but the addition of trophies might make it worth going back and replaying.
• Hoard
  One of the three PSN games that I will likely never uninstall. I’m working my way through Hoard’s “medals”, which are like sub-trophies. Get enough medals and you get a trophy. The game is a lot of fun.
• Pixeljunk
  I know there are plenty: Racers, Monsters, Eden, Shooter, Shooter 2. Although I’ve got a huge affinity for Monsters, these are all good games.
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time HD
  I tried the game in its PC incarnation years ago and hated it. But even the HD version is no longer new, and would make a good option for a freebie like this.
• Prototype
  I actually think I liked Prototype a bit better than inFAMOUS. To be honest, they’re basically the same game. But Prototype had better gliding mechanics and I preferred running up walls to slowly climbing them.
• Trine
  One of my favorite PSN games, and my only platinum trophy. It would be a gem of a freebie, and a good promo for the forthcoming sequel.

Too Little Too Late?

It’s easy to scoff at the offer, but I suppose that Sony wasn’t really required to do anything here. They’re not going to lose any money by giving this stuff away, so it’s ultimately just a PR move. Hardcore gamers will likely already have these games. Those who aren’t might not ever realize that there was any freebie to be had.

My wife and I have always played video games together. Back when we were first dating, she bought a gaming PC and left it over my house so that she could come over and play Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s Gate with me. Later, we played Dungeon Siege, Champions of Norrath and Gauntlet Legends together. These top-down or isometric action RPGs are amongst our favorite games to play together. Recently, we’d been looking for a game of that ilk to dive into on the Playstation 3. While Sacred 2 is by no means the most recent PS3 game, it was well-spoken of, so we figured we’d give it a shot. On a whim one weekend afternoon this past spring, we popped by a GameStop and grabbed a copy. I’m not a big fan of teh Gamestop, but it’s good for impulse purchases.

Sacred 2 is awkward and difficult to understand. Each character has three skill categories, and four skills in each for a total of fifteen powers/spells/techniques. Most of them are difficult to use well, don’t do much damage, and don’t seem very cool. You can combine two into a single power and slot that power on a given button, but I have yet to find a good use for that, as the powers are mostly useless anyway. The game’s weapon system is similarly opaque. You can see the damage and level of weapons, but is a level 8 weapon that does 10-28 damage somehow better than a level 5 weapon that does 12-36 damage?

So far, it’s nearly impossible to die in Sacred 2. And while this is infinitely preferable to an error on the opposite side of the scale, it means that strategy is absent. In Diablo 2, you’d dodge incoming enemy fire. In Champions of Norrath, you’d use area attacks to take out enemies before they could close. In Sacred 2, this is not an option, nor is it necessary.

There is so much more I could complain about in Sacred 2. And yet we continue to play. The game mechanics suck, but the running around and killing things is somehow enjoyable.

It’s hard to look at Uncharted 2 and call it anything other than a great game. But I found myself repeatedly annoyed and frustrated with the game’s puzzles, camera angles, and especially the game’s controls. I hate running around for 5 minutes in a small room looking for where I’m supposed to climb only to receive a hint that I need to climb up to a ledge. Thanks. Might as well have had that hint read “win the game”. It’d be equally useful. I hate running up to a ladder and pressing a button to climb it only to have that button make me jump off a nearby cliff, falling to my death. I hate waiting 45 seconds for a guard to turn his back so that I can sneak up and mug him, only to have Drake dash to the other side of the doorway at which he’s hiding rather than through the door. A second attempt to go through the door made me dash back to my original position. It’s pretty rare that I get this far into a game without having gotten some basic mastery over the controls. And I hated some of the platforming for the same reasons that I hated the original Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I’d try a jump two or three times and fall to my death before deciding that the game wanted me to choose a different path. After a half hour of searching for another path, I’d find that the one I tried originally was correct. It’s just that the first few times, Drake didn’t jump hard enough or something.

I really want to love this game. I’m partway through the train sequence, which I rage quit last night at half past midnight after my fiftieth death on the same checkpoint. When I go back to the game, I’m going to try harder to enjoy it. Everyone else loved the game, why oh why can’t I?

And whereas the Playstation 2 absolutely dominated the market with such titles as Shadow of the Colossus, God of War, and Katamari Damacy, the Playstation 3 has until recently had no such list.

But check this out.

Heavy Rain
I’ve written about Heavy Rain plenty. It’s a phenomenal interactive murder/mystery. I’ve already bought a second copy as a gift for a friend, largely because I needed to share the experience. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking the game up. It’s so choice.

LittleBigPlanet
I haven’t written about LittleBigPlanet on this site, largely because I haven’t played the game much, although we do own it. My wife, on the other hand, played through the game nearly to completion. I’m sure that I could lose myself in the game’s creation engine as I once did with Neverwinter Nights’ Aurora Engine creation studio. But for now, I’ll continue to resist.

Pixeljunk Monsters
My love for Pixeljunk Monsters seems to know no limits. Years after buying the game, I’m still playing it. And just a few weeks ago, I finally unlocked the second-to-last level in the expansion. It is very hard.

Trine
I know that there also exists a PC version on Steam, but Trine on the Playstation 3 is superior, if only because you can play the game with three players. It’s also the only game on which I’ve ever managed a platinum trophy. Not easy.

Uncharted 2
Everyone else seems to love this game more than I do, but I’ll admit that it’s a good game. I’m probably less than halfway through right now. I’ll have more to offer as I progress further.

In addition to the above, I’m interested to try the punishingly difficult Demon’s Souls, and I know I’ll soon pick up a copy of God of War 3. Also, as soon as The Last Guardian hits store shelves, I’m all over it.

Here’s my own review: “WOOO!”