GotG Round 1: Super Mario Galaxy vs. Super Meat Boy

Well this is a brutal round. On the one hand I absolutely adore everything about Super Mario Galaxy, on the other, I love/hate Super Meat Boy and have beaten all of the normal worlds on PC and the 360. I think I'm going to have to vote for Super Meat Boy. I'm kind of surprised at myself to be honest.

Super Mario Galaxy?

I am well aware of the love for Galaxy out there and I understand it but going to have to vote for meat boy. Level design, controls, and the music are all top notch.

I love both these games, Meatboy might have the most precise control scheme in any game I've ever played. But SMG blew me away when I played it. It looks fantastic, plays amazingly and has a new creative twist around every corner. It's one of my favourite games of the generation, so SMG!

Fuck, man. I love both of these games and both could potentially be in my personal top five games of the generation.

I guess...I gotta give it to Super Meat Boy. In the end, that is the only game this generation that I literally leaped off my couch and started screaming when I beat it. But Super Mario Galaxy is still fucking great.

Super Mario Galaxy!

I like the one that doesn't entail ramming against a brick wall until I make progress.

I chose Super Mario Galaxy, but this is one of the few first rounders I foresaw not going my way. Super Meat Boy seems worthy, at least.

Mario Galaxy easily for me. The first time I played it, my mind was blown and I bought a Wii for it. Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are still the only games I've finished on my wii. Not really surprised Meat boy is winning though as I imagine in this community more people have played it.

Super Mario Galaxy is in my Top 5 favorite games ever. Easy pick for me.

I recently started playing Super Mario Galaxy 2. Reason it took so long is because I didn't like Super Mario Galaxy much at all. I forget why at this point. But I'm diggin' SMG2 quite a bit so far.

Super Meat Boy because its better than mario could ever dream to be.

Kind of unfortunate for Super Meat Boy, a game that was so influential it must have been mentioned in literally dozens of different quick looks of indie games/2D platformers for years after its release, to go up against one of the best games of the generation so early in the competition.

Still, take these early rounds with a major grain of salt of course.

Wow! Really wasn't expecting this one to be so close.

@demoskinos said:

Super Meat Boy. It raised the bar for all platformers, 2-D or 3-D. I will always have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder about Super Mario Galaxy. I personally think it's the "worst" of the 3-D Mario games (64, Sunshine, Galaxy 2, 3D Land if you want to include it, but I put that in a little bit of a different category). Still a great game, and fully deserving to be in this bracket and in the discussion.

Super Meat Boy is the gold standard. I'm salivating just waiting for it to be eclipsed at some point. I should probably get this looked at.

Fuck I meant to click on Super Meat Boy cause fuckin' duh, but I clicked on Mario :/

Super Meat Boy led to the resurgence of challenging 2D platformers and is also part of the rise of independent development and downloadable titles. SMG is a spectacular game, no doubt about it but if I want to have the game that is more representative of this generation than I'd go with SMB.

these polls are going to get tougher and tougher i see.

id go with mario galaxy, that game is just pure joy and pure creativity. and it is right up there quality-wise with mario 64.

Super Meat Boy is aggressively challenging to the point of frustration. Super Mario Galaxy trades extreme difficulty for new perspectives on platforming. Mario wins.

But i <3 them both!

Super Mario Galaxy is a treasure of a game. I love Meat Boy to death, but Galaxy was my favorite 3D Mario game outside of 64, and you just can't compete with Nintendo when they're on their A-game.

Super meat boy is perfectly challenging. I never felt aggravated or out of control of what what happening. It's pixel perfect platform at it's finest. A fair challenge with superb controls.

Galaxy is great, but the fact that I had to play it with that god forsaken wii mote is enough to have meat boy win this one. I would love to play Galaxy with the pro controller. You can keep your waggle bullshit, Nintendo.

My vote is for Super Meat boy.

This is closer than I'd like it to be. I haven't even played Galaxy and I love Meat Boy but I think the former is more deserving of going through to the next round.

I love Galaxy, but Meat Boy has to take it for me. It just nailed so many things perfectly; there's a reason it gets brought up as a benchmark in conversations about other games now, particularly when it comes to the controls. It might be a perfect platformer, I dunno, I just love it to death. And don't forget, the soundtrack is just fantastic too:

I really, really did not like playing Super Mario Galaxy(or any other Mario game sans 3D Land since Sunshine, for that matter) and absolutely love Super Meat Boy.

Super Meat Boy is really really good but it's such a specific experience that has its ups and downs. For me I had a great time with Super Meat Boy, and its bar for 2D platforming is so high I'd say its the best controlling 2D platformer ever made. With that said, the design of the game is for all intents and purposes exhausting and a test against your will and reflexes giving you all the control you need. And the level design is there too for Super Meat Boy to work but again, the consistent joy of Super Mario Galaxy is something I hold closer than Super Meat Boy personally.

But I have no beef if say Super Meat Boy trumps it or anything. This is what I call a good fight and one I would appreciate going either way.

You monsters. I love both of these for totally different reasons.

Super Mario Galaxy is the best game ever to grace planet earth though, so it wins by default. Sorry Meat Boy...I do love you, as my S-rank will attest.

Has to be Mario Galaxy. Meat Boy is a great Indie game, but Mario Galaxy still trumps it.

Both games are amazing, but ill give Super Meat Boy my vote since i prefer 2D platformers.

This is hard, because I never liked super meat boy, but I kinda want it to be on this list because it's an indie game, it's got tight controls and it's captured the attention of casual gamers who always wanted a game like this. But I still kinda find it obnoxious, the art is poor and the humor is dull.

I have never played SMG but I have seen it and I want to.

SMB I played a lot of and it's a great modern platformer. I had to vote for Super Meat Boy.

Definitely Galaxy

Meat Boy did what it intended to do really well but it simply isn't as special or as important as Galaxy.

Some of the games in these polls are hilarious.

which one in this poll is hilarious exactly?

I am almost certain I will not particularly like this result either way. Meat Boy is so damngood, but Mario Galaxy is also really damn good.

But Meat Boy is so so good!

Mario Galaxy for this one, I played a bit of Super Meat Boy but it just didn't seem like the game for me.

SMG is good, but the steep difficulty reduction relative to other Mario games made it kind of boring to me at times. Felt like the game was specifically designed so absolutely anyone could beat it with ease. I prefer my platformers sadistically hard, ala SMB. I'd be totally fine with either of these winning though, both are great games.

Mario is good, but Super Meat Boy is one of my favorite games of all time.

Did I miss something when It came out, or are you just crazy? SMB is not really what I would call a casual-friendly game, did it actually get any attention from that crowd?

I voted Super Meat Boy because I want to watch the world burn. It's also a really, really awesome game - one of my top 10 easy. Man, it's so good.

This was super hard to decide. Galaxy is clearly one of the best platformers ever made, but Meat Boy doesn't do a single thing wrong. Perfect difficulty balance, controls, music... a great sense of humour.

This is a real heart breaker of a vote. I love Super Meat Boy to death but it just doesn't compare to sheer variety of gameplay found in Super Mario Galaxy. It's a case where having an old-school maso-core feel isn't enough to define something as a game of the generation. If Galaxy wasn't such a spectacular game this would have been an easy vote in favor of Super Meat Boy.

Galaxy making a comeback, whew.

I loved Super Meat Boy and didn't own a Wii so for me personally I would give it to Meat Boy. People that played Galaxy said it was great so I would completely understand if it wins.

Wow this is surprisingly close!

I'll have to think about this. I got all the achievement in Super Meat Boy and it's one of the best platformers ever made that's super rewarding thanks to its difficulty.

The only game that may be better is Super Mario Galaxy/2 and it happens to be its opponent. The only reason it barely gets my vote is because Super Mario Galaxy gave me the same "wow" factor I felt when I first played Mario 64 at Blockbuster. The gravity element literally blew my mind.

Mario Galaxy