Super Meat Boy

Video games have come a long way since the old-school sidescrolling platform games of yore. Most games these days are developed to be more streamlined, more forgiving towards players. We live comfortably selecting our difficulty setting and knowing that we’ll reach the end of the game. If that’s the kind of game you’re looking for, then it’s doubtful you will find it here. Super Meat Boy is one of the most unforgiving and infuriating games I have played in recent memory. And I love it.

Don’t get me wrong, the game is most certainly playable. In fact the controls are some of the most balanced I’ve found in a platforming game since the original Super Mario Bros. Super Meat Boy harkens back to a time where gaming was reliant on skill, rather than cinematic experiences. It’s a game that tests your reactions to see if you’re worthy of that 65G achievement bounty.

You play as Meat Boy, an anthropomorphic wad of meat whose girlfriend, Bandage Girl, has been kidnapped by the evil Dr Fetus – a newborn inside a monocle-wearing robot suit. Your objective is simple: save Bandage Girl. The execution however, is not. Super Meat Boy features some of the most robust and well thought-out level design I’ve seen in an old-school platformer. The route to the goal is often obvious at first glance, however it will usually be followed by an “Oh crap…”.

 Old-school game, new-school look.

The first thing people will probably notice of the game is its cartoony charm. Despite the humour being gratuitous and often crass (which suits me juuust fine), it shows personality in its style. The vibrance in colour help overlook the grim outcomes of some of Meat Boys failures – of which there will be many. As Meat Boy runs and clings to walls he leaves a trail of blood on the areas he’s touched, and will remain on the environment until the stage has been cleared. Once a stage is cleared a replay of all your Meat Boys’ efforts will be played immediately afterwards – it’s funny seeing 25+ chunks of meat running and failing simultaneously on one screen. Throughout the game you may encounter warp zones which are usually inspired from classic 8 and 16-bit games and feature a graphical style akin to it. Also I found myself literally laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of the cutscenes. Though there’s no voice acting, it definitely delivers more charm and personality than some recent efforts to include them. *coughMetroidcough*

The controls are minimalist; you run and you jump. In addition to this is a plethora of unlockable characters with unique special abilities such as The Kid from I Wanna Be The Guy’s double-jump and Commander Video from the Bit.Trip series’ hover. Other honourable guest mentions go to Ninja from N+, Tim from Braid, Pink Knight from Castle Crashers, Jill from Mighty Jill Off and Alien from Alien Hominid to name some. Each character has their own distinct feel and you’ll often find that some are better to use for certain stages than others. The characters are unlocked by either finding specific amounts of bandages or completing warp zones, both of which are hidden inside certain stages.

The level design in Super Meat Boy is nothing short of intelligent. There is a supposed total of about 350 unique stages, which I believe to be true since I have only completed around 210 and can still see so many more to even start yet. There are five chapters dedicated to the main game and three unlockable chapters, one being a sort of epilogue featuring Bandage Girl. Alongside the five main chapters are its Dark World parallels; a kind of alternate collection of stages that have been dynamically altered compared to their Light World counterparts. The game does well at easing you into a rhythm during the first couple of chapters with various gameplay techniques and challenges. As the the game goes on you’ll notice a considerable amount of change in terms of difficulty by the final chapter, and it only gets harder from there. For the most part you won’t encounter any enemies until the later chapters; you’ll become much more familiar with environmental perils such as spikes, spinning razors and piles of salt. However once you find your mojo with the environments you’ll find yourself breezing through them. The stages were designed to be beaten in under a minute; most have a target time between 15-30 seconds, though attaining those times will depend on your level of skill.

Poor guy just wanted to smooch.

One of my most notable pleasantries with the game was the soundtrack. Team Meat has put together a great collection of tunes that are both catchy and not annoying (which is important when you end up having to replay some levels a hundred times… literally). Like the rest of Super Meat Boy the music is a hearty nod towards 8-bit and 16-bit music, usually using the same types of sound bites. Each chapter has its own theme that plays throughout every stage, and the Dark World ones are almost remixes of their parallels. The tunes featured in warp zones inspired by classic games are particularly enjoyable to listen to. Also, the sound effects are crisp and add that extra layer of immersion; at first I found Meat Boy’s bloody pitter-pattering footsteps and wall-clinging squish disturbing but soon warmed up to it.

For a downloadable title there is an incredible amount of content here. The game is currently running at 800 Microsoft Points until the 1st of November, from then on being a fixed price of 1200. The game has replayability coming out with the wazoo with competitive leaderboards for people to try their skill at speed runs in over 350 stages. Then there’s collecting bandages and finding warp zones to attain the hidden characters. The game is well worth its 1200 MS point price, and at 800 it’s an absolute steal. Do yourself a favour and at least try out the demo; this is the best XBox Live Arcade game to come out since Castle Crashers.

Score: 10 out of 10

 

(Super Meat Boy will also be released on WiiWare and PC in the near future, though prices are yet to be announced.)