Super Meat Boy

There’s something quite alluring about a game that holds its difficulty over your head with conceit. You know it’s hard, and because of that, you really want to show the game that it won’t — nay, can’t — get the best of you. It’s just a game, right? With enough time and effort, there’s no reason you can’t eventually beat it. That is, unless the game hates you.

Super Meat Boy hates you.

Oh, it presents itself as a fun-loving old school platformer, but that’s just a façade. If it could, it would eat your soul and laughingly belch a happy tune. But it’s good. It’s damn good. No matter how impossible a challenge may seem, the fast-paced, bite-sized levels are just rewarding enough to make pushing through the pain ultimately worthwhile.

At its core, Super Meat Boy is quite simple. As the titular character, you must race from point A to point B, hoping against hope that you when get there, the evil Dr. Fetus won’t snatch up your girlfriend and drag her off to the next level. But he will. Super Meat Boy is a treasure trove of tributes to classic games, so it is only fitting that your main quest be to rescue a girl that is always just out of your reach.

From title screens and musical interludes to hidden worlds and secret characters, seasoned gamers will be bombarded with familiar scenes from gaming history. It’s obvious from the presentation that the developers have a deep love of games, but slick visuals and retro music aren’t the only quality portions of this package.

The character of Super Meat Boy is a, well, a hunk of bloody meat. Every surface he careens into gets sponged in blood, and every spinning blade he grazes creates a shower of gore. It’s gratuitous, but it’s a reminder of just how bad you are. The game’s constant challenge is this: get to the exit as fast as possible, and do it without dying. Die, and you must start from the beginning. And because it’s expected that you will die a lot, there’s practically no wait between lives. Within a second you’re thrown back into the fray, with all your previous gore still splattered everywhere.

The coolest part? When you complete a stage, a replay shows all of your attempts at once. If it took you 20 times to finish, you’ll see 20 meat boys flailing about, with only one emerging victorious. It’s borderline awe-inspiring to watch the culmination of your work, and the game would feel remarkably less cool without this feature. And let’s face it, Super Meat Boy is all about being cool.

Speed is the name of the game, as completing a level in under a set time unlocks an alternate version of said level that is far, far more dangerous. To complete these speed tests, you’ll need to master the art of bouncing off walls and controlling your air sprints. The controls are spot on, to the point where you won’t find much sympathy in death: it wasn’t the game’s fault, you just weren’t good enough. The game encourages you to be as seemingly reckless as possible, with brilliantly constructed levels designed with speed and precision in mind. The impossible soon becomes approachable once you take off the training wheels and focus on quick, precise jumps and sprints.

If there’s anything to complain about, it’s that the PC keyboard controls aren’t customizable (even though you should be using a controller anyway), so you’re stuck using the arrow keys to move around and space bar to jump. It’s also a shame that the leader boards are completely useless, as all the best times are 0-second runs, so there’s no legitimate way to compete for the top spot. And if it wasn’t already obvious, the game can get quite difficult, especially on the bonus levels that require sustained periods of near pixel perfect accuracy. It’s rewarding, but damn if it can’t be frustrating.

So grab a controller, kick back and prepare to bask in retro wonder, one gruesome death at a time.