Limbo of the Lost

Limbo of the Lost
The grandfather of the asset flips.
Protagonist(s): Captain Benjamin Briggs Genre(s): Graphic adventure Platform(s): Microsoft Windows Release: EU: September 28, 2007 RU: March 14, 2008 NA: June 2, 2008 Developer(s): Majestic Studios Publisher(s): EU: G2 Games RU: 1C Company NA: Tri Synergy Country: United Kingdom Successor: Limbo of the Lost II: Flight to Freedom (cancelled)

Limbo of the Lost is a graphic adventure game developed by the British three-person development team Majestic Studios and published by G2 Games in Europe, 1C Company in Russia, and Tri Synergy in North America. This is Majestic Studio's only game released before they closed down. The game won the title of one of the worst games of all time and the greatest plagiarism in the history of video games, as a result of which the game was quickly removed from store shelves.

The story is based on the mysterious disappearance of Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs.

Background

In the early 1990s, Majestic Studios was originally developing the game for the Atari ST as a graphical text adventure game. Publishers were interested in the game but only if it was completed. Once they failed on completing the game, they later developed it for the Amiga 500 but now as a point-and-click adventure game. Rasputin Software agreed to publish the game and allowed a port for the Amiga 1200 and Amiga CD32. When there was no demand for those computers, it was eventually developed for Windows this time needing to learn how to use 3D development tools.

Plot

Benjamin Briggs, captain of the Mary Celeste is stuck in Limbo after being missing from his ship. He ends up having to help Destiny win a war against Fate.

Why It's Lost in Limbo

1. The game had been under development for 13 years (since 1994 to 2007). Due to this, most of various elements and gameplay mechanics were horribly aged at the release.
2. There is huge amounts of plagiarism. From backgrounds, assets, FMVs, menus, and font. The developers did little to hide that they were stolen from different sources. Notable sources of theft include The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, Enclave, Diablo II, Painkiller, World of Warcraft, Thief: The Dark Project, Beetlejuice, and Spawn.
   • There's a scene where Briggs plays the flute that makes the first few notes from the iconic Indiana Jones theme. They didn't just steal the song, they stole the notes from an easter egg in Serious Sam. That's right, the developers couldn't be bothered to make a simple tune themselves or even make their own version of the Indiana Jones theme!
3. The cutscenes are reminiscent of the Zelda CD-i games in which the characters have ungodly animations, non-existent lip-syncing, and constantly zoom in and out. Briggs himself is easily the worst offender during cutscenes because he will stare blankly at nothing as if he's not alive and sometimes would awkwardly smile at the player.
4. Other than the mystery of his disappearance, there's no reason why Benjamin Briggs is the main character. There's no mention of his family or his crew from the Mary Celeste. The protagonist could have been literally anyone and the story wouldn't change at all. In fact, Briggs looks more like DarksydePhil with blue eyes and less weight than what he looks like in real life.
5. The DVD that came included with the game elaborates more on the plot than the game itself. It feels like it should've played at the very beginning of the game and not be on a separate disk! footage also looks like it was edited by someone who used Windows Movie Maker for the first time. And just like the game, there is also plagiarism in the form of videos which are from the CryEngine 2 demo and the Pirates of the Caribbean game released in 2003.
6. The character models all look hideous, looking more like they were from a cutscene in an adventure game from 1997, rather than a game made in 2007!
7. The screens are screenshots from plagiarized games, some of which are mentioned in W.I.S. #2. The developers didn't think of having the screens being connected, however; like, for example, if there is an open door shown from a screenshot from a different game, the game doesn't show that you can go through that door. It became a meme to put Benjamin Briggs in screenshots from different games and media because of this.
8. Some of the solutions to puzzles are practically impossible to solve unless you're using a guide.
   • One puzzle requires you to get ingredients for a sleeping potion that the cook Cranny F*ggot (yes, that's her name) can use to make one for you in order to get a guard to fall asleep (who's already sleeping prior to taking the potion) in order for you to steal the key around his neck. One of the ingredients is tequila. How do you get it? You mix water with a worm! How does that make any sense?!
   • You need to make a fake drink called the "soul of a warrior" that's a green liquid in order to take the real drink. You have to mix a bottle of water with a bag of saffron that magically makes the water turn green! Even if you follow the logic with the color of both items, the red saffron and blue water would make the liquid yellow, not green!
9. Sometimes when the cutscene ends, you automatically leave the screen that you were in. This is a bad design because you end up missing important items that were on that screen. You end up wasting time to go back to the previous screen and get the item.
10. The compass in the UI never stops spinning, which makes it pointless as to why it's there in the first place. It stops spinning when you move the cursor to where you can move to a different room, but it doesn't always work.
11. There's a part where you have to find a secret entrance into a dungeon. It's not made obvious what the solution is. What you have to do is go to a specific spot in a bar and move the cursor until it changes and then you click at it. How in the world would anyone know that?! Even if you did know what to do, it's still a hassle because since this is a point and click game, every time you click you move to that spot.
12. The game crashes frequently.
13. Some items are too difficult to click on because you have to click on specific pixels on the item itself in order to interact or pick it up. Some items are too difficult to spot due to limited visibility. It doesn't help that some items that you would think are important and are easily found are items that you can't pick up.
14. Terrible audio mixing.
15. Frequent grammar errors in sentences. There is also more than one use of periods when a sentence ends, for some reason.
16. Horrible voice acting that's all being done by one person.
    • The voice actor starts to have a coughing fit for a few seconds in the middle of the dialogue for one of the characters. The captions list the coughing, but the character himself is moving his lips as if he's speaking, indicating this wasn't meant to happen.
    • The main character, Benjamin Briggs, despite being an American in real-life history, sounds more like a person with a British accent in this game.
17. There's no way to change the level of the volume in the game. That includes music, sound effects, and dialogue. If you change the volume in the audio mixer, the volume will be changed accordingly, but once you go to another room, the volume level goes back to where it was before.
18. A very bizarre ending that to be seen to be believed.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Voice acting can be so bad it's good.
2. The main theme song is actually decent.

Reception

The game has a negative reception from the few critics that played the game when it released and is considered as one of the worst games of all-time. It currently has a 2.15 on GameFAQs. Polish video game magazine CD-Action gave the game a -1 out of 10 for the first time in the magazine's history.

On June 12, Tri Synergy stopped shipping the game due to allegations of plagiarism. They claim that they had no idea that there was anything stolen in the game and Majestic Studios says that they didn't steal anything and claim that it was the doing of an unnamed outsourced company. Because of this, the game is very rare and can cost hundreds of dollars in secondhand markets. It was even discovered that the Amiga demo made in the 1990s also has plagiarized materials in it.

The ending hinted at a sequel with the title Limbo of the Lost II: Flight to Freedom, but obviously this wasn't going to be made because of its reception and the closure of Majestic Studios.

BartekGM hailed it as the worst game of all time due to mass plagiarism, giving it a -2/10 rating, and the game held that title until episode 100 when it was finally dethroned by CrazyBus. NRGeek also found it to be the worst game he's ever played, criticizing literally everything.

Trivia

• One of the developers pretended to be a fan of the game with the username FABLE and discouraged people from using guides due to how "disrespectful" it would be to the developers for their hard work for creating the puzzles. Things got so bad that the same developer using the username MSTUDIOS on the forum backed himself up. The site owner noticed that both accounts have the same IP address, but MSTUDIOS said that FABLE is a play tester and Majestic Studios only has one computer for "safety reasons." The site owner didn't believe his lie and locked the thread.
• The name Cranny F*ggot may be based on the late English TV chef Fanny Cradock and the traditional dish in the United Kingdom.
• Planning for the game began as early as 1990, when the company that produced the game, Majestic Studios, was founded.

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