After all this talk of Super Meat Boy and how it's like I Wanna Be The Guy I thought to myself "since I don't have a 360 lets see where Super Meat Boy gets it's inspiration from since that looks fun as hell". So I found it and downloaded it and the torture commenced.  
 
OMG I have never played a harder game. I never even passed the first level because after realizing I wasn't supposed to go downwards but upwards I kept dying over and over from fucking apples or cherries or whatever the fuck they were supposed to be. After getting the timing and pattern down I got to the next part and promptly said Fuck This and stopped playing. Am I confident I could eventually get past it? Sure I probably could eventually. Will I ever try? FUCK NO......well no time soon at least.   
 
Ahh fuck it I'm starting it up as I type this. I will finish this game. 
 
So for all of you who actually played and beat it or at least got pretty far what kept you going? 

If you want to be the guy, you have to beat the game. It's that simple. 

" If you want to be the guy, you have to beat the game. It's that simple.  "

" I Wanna Be The Guy is deliberately unfair.  There WILL, I repeat, WILL be many times you die where you just have to learn what each thing does and basically memorize it.  What kept me going was the awesome music, some quite hilarious deaths now and then, and probably a sheer masochistic will to not let the game get the best of me. That being said, I'm crazy because I also love the game for that reason.  I can't think of a time where I was more satisfied beating a game than this one.    Of course, I also can't think of another game where I cussed and yelled more than this one either, but it comes with the territory in this game XD.  This is a game you have to stick with, but it was worth it for me. "

I did the same thing as you, but man did I hate that game. I played to the part overlooking the town and gave up cause I didn't know where I should be going.

" I Wanna Be The Guy is deliberately unfair.  There WILL, I repeat, WILL be many times you die where you just have to learn what each thing does and basically memorize it.  What kept me going was the awesome music, some quite hilarious deaths now and then, and probably a sheer masochistic will to not let the game get the best of me. That being said, I'm crazy because I also love the game for that reason.  I can't think of a time where I was more satisfied beating a game than this one.    Of course, I also can't think of another game where I cussed and yelled more than this one either, but it comes with the territory in this game XD.  This is a game you have to stick with, but it was worth it for me. "

Super Meat Boy isn't really like I Wanna be The Guy though. It's more about speed and timing than anything else.

" I did the same thing as you, but man did I hate that game. I played to the part overlooking the town and gave up cause I didn't know where I should be going. "

Save yourself the stress and watch a playthrough on YouTube or something. I got a couple dozen screens in after it came out and haven't really played since.

I beat the first couple of screens, but I just didn't like the controls so I stopped. Then I just watched most of it on Youtube, and felt pretty damn good about it.

I finished the game on the default difficulty a while ago. It's really hard at the beginning. Then once you get a hang of the controls, you can get through a level in a few tries. 
 
Note: you have to take the downwards path sooner or later. There's a fake wall on the first screen with the moving wall-spike things that you can go through.