If you are not aware of it, Super Meat Boy is an award-winning independent game which is sure to strike a chord with you, if you like old school platformers, and probably even if you don't. It is, in a word, brilliant. And really hard. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is the hardest game I've ever played in my 10+ years of gaming. So what is it about, and what makes it so compelling?
What is it about?
I'll let the developers speak for themselves:
Super Meat Boy is a tough as nails platformer where you play as an animated cube of meat who's trying to save his girlfriend (who happens to be made of bandages) from an evil fetus in a jar wearing a tux.
I really can't help smiling at that. :)
What makes it so compelling?
- Is it the story? Let me know if this sounds familiar: boy likes girl, girl gets kidnapped by bad guy, boy needs to rescue ever-elusive girl. If it did sound familiar, it is only because it is a plot we've seen hundreds of times. So clearly, the story isn't it.
- Is it innovation? Well, this is a platformer. You jump around, looking to "rescue the princess", while trying to avoid falling into pits and hitting pointy things or monsters. So it isn't. Not really.
- Is it nostalgia? I don't think so. While the similarities to older platformers are obvious, and the game actually has 8-bit renditions of the characters and music in some levels, it is great in its own right. In fact, even the older games are great in their own right. As an experiment, get an 8-year-old to play Super Mario Bros. It's pretty much guaranteed they'll like it, despite having been exposed to more technically advanced games, with much larger budgets. That game has aged remarkably well.
- Is it the graphics? The graphics are solid, and they manage to get the characters to be both funny and adorable, without ever saying a word! In particular, the animation for the story sequences is great. But let's face it: it's a 2D platformer. That's hardly glamorous, these days.
- Is it the sound? The sound is just great! There are satisfying squishing sounds whenever Meat Boy hits walls or the ground, and different satisfying squishing sounds whenever you are unfortunate enough to hit a buzzsaw... which will happen all the time. The soundtrack is also great, in that it gets you psyched, though it might get repetitive, at times. I'm a sucker for guitars blaring power chords, along with retro instrument voices, and the soundtrack has plenty of them. Even so, I still think it isn't not the sound that makes this game great.
What is it, then?
It is just how incredibly well done the whole thing is, and about the tricks it does to keep you psyched, despite how much you fail. And you will fail. A lot! But when you do succeed, you get to see a simultaneous replay of every single one of your tries, and actually watch how much your playing improved. Another great thing is that the levels are designed to be easier if you play them fast. Once you realize this, you'll be even more motivated, because of how fast you went through them. Beating the goal time for the level also gives you access to a special, more difficult version of it, so, in effect, the better you are, the more content you get.
And now, to address the elephant in the room: Super Meat Boy's gameplay. It's just great! It strays from most typical platformers in that you can also jump from walls, and the enemies, when present, make you need to constantly rethink your strategy. The level design is also great, with the developers creating deliciously difficult ideas, while avoiding being underhanded about it. 99% of the time, you can see every danger before it's actually a danger to you, which is just common sense in game design, but not something you would expect in a game this difficult, especially if it is getting inspiration from the NES classics. Speaking of difficulty, the game makes a good job of ramping it up, while always being challenging.
So, to finally answer the question, what makes Super Meat Boy great is good, old-fashioned game design. That means that two-person teams like this can actually make something more interesting than people with budgets that are orders of magnitude larger. And that's just awesome.
Graphics: 4/5 (I actually like 2D graphics)
Sound: 5/5
Music: 4.5/5
Gameplay: 5/5
Overall: 5/5
Trailer posted by IGNentertainment.
Oh, and don't believe the screens saying you absolutely need a gamepad to play this. You really don't.
Super Meat Boy is available for both PC and XBox Live Arcade.
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