7:17 PM
Anonymous
Flash games have somewhat been a guilty pleasure of mine in the past. I knew they were stupid and a waste of time, but recently when I saw the news of Super Meat Boy being released, I was intrigued and tried the prototype flash game simply titled “Meat Boy”. I have to be honest, I wasn’t too impressed and did not even want to finish the short game. Steam later had a Holiday sale offering Super Meat Boy for just $3.00. I just couldn’t resist trying it. I was quick to realize that the game difficult. I died more times on the first world than any other game I’ve ever played. I was impressed by the difficulty and controls from the very start, but still didn’t blow me away. At least that’s how it was at the beginning. After completing the full Light World (the main/easier part of the game) I knew that this was the game I’ve been waiting for since the rise of 3D gaming.
Gameplay
Super Meat Boy is a two-dimensional platformer that can induces comatose rage. Your abilities include running, walking, jumping, and jumping off walls. Simple right? Your goal is to use these abilities to get through hoards of saws and other traps that instantly kill you and finally reach your love, Bandage Girl. Besides, health is for noobs anyway.
What makes the game so great though? This sounds like a typical “rescue the princess” game dating back to Mario. What’s so awesome about the gameplay is that the controls are so damn solid. I’ve never played a game that controls this smooth. I’ve also never played a game that’s this hard before. The combination of control and difficulty is amazing! Usually when you play a game for difficulty it has to cheat you out of beating it with some cheap gimmick or enemies that just won’t die. In Super Meat Boy I almost never felt this way, it was always my fault for losing. This made winning the best feeling in the world because you know how hard you worked and deserve to move on to the next level. Death is not much of a set back as there is no loading/down time between dying and starting over so you don’t lose much progress, especially considering how short each level is. The game even rewards your failures by showing all of your deaths in the end replay.
The game is definitely catered towards a more old-school gamer audience. If you are a casual gamer Super Meat Boy might not be for you as it is extremely difficult.
Video / Audio
Danny Baranowsky is the man behind the soundtrack of the game, and he did a damn good job. There is usually one track for each world in the game with a slight change for the dark world version. The music is extremely retro, catchy, and unique for each zone. There aren’t too many sounds during the actual gameplay aside from the splat Meat Boy makes when he touches things but in this case, less is more. The title screen with the announcer yelling “Super Meat Boy!” with incredible music in the background is both hysterical and awesome. Of course my favorite effect has to be the announcer’s “Warp Zone!” when you guessed it, you enter a warp zone.
The video, much like the music, is made to look retro and at many times is obviously inspired by specific retro games. Almost all of the cut scenes reference classic games like Castlevania, Megaman, and Street Fighter. While the graphics of the game are not Crisis 2 quality, it fits its own unique retro style. This is incredibly evident in the many warp zones where Meat Boy is warped into a more retro dimension, sometimes even in black and white.
Story
As amazing as everything else is, there is not much of a story in the game. This is of course to be expected for a game paying tribute to retro style games. Super Meat Boy has about the same story as NES games. Bad guy (Dr. Fetus) steals princess (Bandage Girl) and the hero (Meat Boy) has to rescue her. I have no problems with this and a story would be weird on a game like this anyway, but that still does not justify giving this game a high score in the story section.
Content
Super Meat Boy along with having incredibly fun and rewarding gameplay also has an incredible amount of content to keep you satisfied with your buy. First of all, the game is about $15.00, but I personally found it for about $3.00. For that price you can usually expect a short single player campaign. Instead, what you get is a ton of entertainment for your buck. The game contains over 300 extremely difficult levels. These levels take no longer than 45 seconds each to complete, but expect to be spending a lot more time than that actually completing each level. There are also online leaderboards that keep time on each level that you can compare with your friends or the world. There is a slight problem with some people hacking their scores for impossible times, but it works fairly well besides that.
Each light world in the game also includes a boss at the end. These aren’t really a big part of the game, but are a nice additional feature to the large amount of platforming content. After you get the par time for each Light World level, you unlock the Dark World counterpart of that level. This level is a much harder version of the Light World level. The creators made enough changes to the Dark World to make sure it wasn’t like playing the same level though.
After completing the game, there really isn't that much to do unless you're into trying to better your time on each level. Don’t be discouraged by this though. I personally have 38 hours of gameplay after completing the game 100% (technically 106%) and some of the steam achievements. Some of which are beating an entire world without dying once. So far I’ve gotten the achievement for not dying in Hell and am now working on Rapture, so for hardcore gamers you can expect a ton of game time on your profile if you try to attempt these close to impossible achievements.
Team Meat included some other Indy game characters to play around with as well. Each character controls differently and usually has a unique ability. Sometimes if you get stuck on a level, you might want to change to another character to see if he’ll have better chances.
Super Meat Boy has been patched several times and will implement the Level Editor for the computer version sometime soon (although it is taking forever) and levels for XBLA are constantly being added.
Huevos Factor
I have to admit this is one of my favorite games of all time. The game blends every element of retro games so perfectly that it hits a nostalgia nerve, while also giving you an incredibly fun and rewarding experience. While right now I have put it down, once the level editor is released I will once again cause my fingers to cramp from running Meat Boy into countless saws all night long. If you don’t have this game, you are missing out on one of the best experiences you can have while gaming. Super Meat Boy is pure gaming Nirvana.
Breakdown:
Gameplay
9.5 |
Super Meat Boy is a two-dimensional platformer that can induces comatose rage. Your abilities include running, walking, jumping, and jumping off walls. Simple right? Your goal is to use these abilities to get through hoards of saws and other traps that instantly kill you and finally reach your love, Bandage Girl. Besides, health is for noobs anyway.
What makes the game so great though? This sounds like a typical “rescue the princess” game dating back to Mario. What’s so awesome about the gameplay is that the controls are so damn solid. I’ve never played a game that controls this smooth. I’ve also never played a game that’s this hard before. The combination of control and difficulty is amazing! Usually when you play a game for difficulty it has to cheat you out of beating it with some cheap gimmick or enemies that just won’t die. In Super Meat Boy I almost never felt this way, it was always my fault for losing. This made winning the best feeling in the world because you know how hard you worked and deserve to move on to the next level. Death is not much of a set back as there is no loading/down time between dying and starting over so you don’t lose much progress, especially considering how short each level is. The game even rewards your failures by showing all of your deaths in the end replay.
The game is definitely catered towards a more old-school gamer audience. If you are a casual gamer Super Meat Boy might not be for you as it is extremely difficult.
Video / Audio
9.0 |
Danny Baranowsky is the man behind the soundtrack of the game, and he did a damn good job. There is usually one track for each world in the game with a slight change for the dark world version. The music is extremely retro, catchy, and unique for each zone. There aren’t too many sounds during the actual gameplay aside from the splat Meat Boy makes when he touches things but in this case, less is more. The title screen with the announcer yelling “Super Meat Boy!” with incredible music in the background is both hysterical and awesome. Of course my favorite effect has to be the announcer’s “Warp Zone!” when you guessed it, you enter a warp zone.
The video, much like the music, is made to look retro and at many times is obviously inspired by specific retro games. Almost all of the cut scenes reference classic games like Castlevania, Megaman, and Street Fighter. While the graphics of the game are not Crisis 2 quality, it fits its own unique retro style. This is incredibly evident in the many warp zones where Meat Boy is warped into a more retro dimension, sometimes even in black and white.
Story
6.5 |
As amazing as everything else is, there is not much of a story in the game. This is of course to be expected for a game paying tribute to retro style games. Super Meat Boy has about the same story as NES games. Bad guy (Dr. Fetus) steals princess (Bandage Girl) and the hero (Meat Boy) has to rescue her. I have no problems with this and a story would be weird on a game like this anyway, but that still does not justify giving this game a high score in the story section.
Content
9.0 |
Super Meat Boy along with having incredibly fun and rewarding gameplay also has an incredible amount of content to keep you satisfied with your buy. First of all, the game is about $15.00, but I personally found it for about $3.00. For that price you can usually expect a short single player campaign. Instead, what you get is a ton of entertainment for your buck. The game contains over 300 extremely difficult levels. These levels take no longer than 45 seconds each to complete, but expect to be spending a lot more time than that actually completing each level. There are also online leaderboards that keep time on each level that you can compare with your friends or the world. There is a slight problem with some people hacking their scores for impossible times, but it works fairly well besides that.
Each light world in the game also includes a boss at the end. These aren’t really a big part of the game, but are a nice additional feature to the large amount of platforming content. After you get the par time for each Light World level, you unlock the Dark World counterpart of that level. This level is a much harder version of the Light World level. The creators made enough changes to the Dark World to make sure it wasn’t like playing the same level though.
After completing the game, there really isn't that much to do unless you're into trying to better your time on each level. Don’t be discouraged by this though. I personally have 38 hours of gameplay after completing the game 100% (technically 106%) and some of the steam achievements. Some of which are beating an entire world without dying once. So far I’ve gotten the achievement for not dying in Hell and am now working on Rapture, so for hardcore gamers you can expect a ton of game time on your profile if you try to attempt these close to impossible achievements.
Team Meat included some other Indy game characters to play around with as well. Each character controls differently and usually has a unique ability. Sometimes if you get stuck on a level, you might want to change to another character to see if he’ll have better chances.
Super Meat Boy has been patched several times and will implement the Level Editor for the computer version sometime soon (although it is taking forever) and levels for XBLA are constantly being added.
Huevos Factor
10 |
I have to admit this is one of my favorite games of all time. The game blends every element of retro games so perfectly that it hits a nostalgia nerve, while also giving you an incredibly fun and rewarding experience. While right now I have put it down, once the level editor is released I will once again cause my fingers to cramp from running Meat Boy into countless saws all night long. If you don’t have this game, you are missing out on one of the best experiences you can have while gaming. Super Meat Boy is pure gaming Nirvana.
Breakdown:
| Gameplay | 9.5 |
| Video / Audio | 9.0 |
| Story | 6.5 |
| Content | 9.0 |
| Huevos Factor | 10.0 |
Total | 9.0 |
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