Super Meat Boy

I don’t what it is about  the game genre of ‘ Masocore’ fascinating. I am as easily frustrated with not being able to progress through a game because of an impossible boss or asshole level design. Really, games that are labelled this should be the worst game you ever played. It’s frustrating, unfair and completely and utterly unenjoyable. But that’s not true and I don’t know why. Tell me why don’t I just turn off the game and never touch it again leaving it as only a bad memory. Why do people keeping going trying to get that 100% achievement. Why can’t I stop playing ‘Super Meat Boy’?

This game is the video game equivalent of the biggest asshole you know. Doesn’t matter what kind of person he or she is, this game is it. Every time you encounter each other you are instantly expressing hate towards it. Every move it makes, every word said is like nails to a chalk board.  But the difference between ‘Super Meat Boy’ and my ex-girlfriend (ba-dum tish) is that you keep coming back to ‘Super Meat Boy’. It’s insane difficultly is not punishing you, but challenging you to beat it.  Yes, at some point you will be stuck on some part of a level which you cannot get pass. You stand up, scream profanity at the TV, almost throw the controller until you realise you are about to break a pricey piece of equipment along with what it hits and walk away. Once you have done something else, gotten a drink, watched some Quick Looks you come back to ‘Super Meat Boy’ and say to yourself “Let’s try this again”.

If you haven’t gotten the clue than let me put it bluntly – Super Meat Boy is one hard game.   It’s designed in such a way that when you die it’s not SMB’s fault, it’s yours. That’s maybe a sign to avoid this game at all cost but with that difficultly comes the intense satisfaction of beating a level. When you beat a level which has proven difficult to you, you feel as if you are the best Super Meat Boy player on the planet. Watching all of those Meat Boys jumping from the start of the level in the replay only to be thinned out by saw blades, salt and spikes to see one perfect run of pure skill is amazing to say the least and easily one of the best parts of the game.

But trust me; there are alot of ‘best parts of the game’. It’s graphics has the graphical style of an Atari 2600, a Gameboy, a SNES and a flash game (which the game was based on, Meat Boy).The style changes throughout the game giving each of the worlds

and warp zones it’s own identity which makes looking at every level a visual delight.

The music is awesome, to simply put it. It again uses the retro sound chips and synths of yesteryear by using short simple melodies that will get stuck in your head. The same can be said about the sound effects used as well, which could of been easily ripped from a Mega Man game. A small but very awesome feature of the music is that when you die, the music doesn’t start over again which would triple the stress if it repeated with every death.

The controls are very loose but once you get used to the physics and the way momentum works you’ll be flying through a level like you were the best. It’s has the standard ‘retro’ platformer control scheme of ‘A’ to jump and the right trigger to run as well as ‘X’ for other abilities.

Though a simple story, the way ‘Super Meat Boy’ tells it’s story is a blissful delight. By using classic video game openings from Street Fighter 2, Castlevania, Mega Man 2 and much more ‘Super Meat Boy’ tells the story of Meat Boy, a red cube of meat trying to save his gal-pal ‘ Bandage Girl’ (how the two relate I have no clue) from the evil clutch of Dr Fetus. In every level the goal is to reach a helpless crying Bandage Girl only to be quickly taken away from you at the last second. Damn you Dr Fetus!

 It tries to go for that ‘NES Hard’ era of games where games were given their length notby content but by difficulty but even that cannot be said about ‘Super Meat Boy’. This game has over 300 levels all with differentthemes and challenges. Every normal level has a ‘light’ and ‘dark’ version much like Twilight Princess.  The dark levels are basically the ‘light’ version but with more saw blades and spikes for you to pass. Not only that but some of the levels have secret warp zones and hidden goodies making you search every nook and cranny. The game also features multiple characters from other indie games such as Alien Hominid and Pink Knight from Behemoth’s games, Tim from Braid, Bit Trip Runner from the Bit Trip series and ‘The Kid’ from the motherfuckers of all motherfuckers ‘I Wanna Be The Guy’. Every character behaves and reacts differently making them useful for certain levels forcing you to experiment and test each scenario.

It’s amazing that I got as far as I did in ‘Super Meat Boy’ even with it’s brutality. But even after all of the times I died, for all the times I looked at a level and thought ‘No fucking way’, for everytime I wanted to throw my Xbox hard drive off a bridge I kept coming back and letting it play with me all over again.

That has to been a sign of an excellent game, right?