PixlBit

Good afternoon, PixlBit.

 

I'll be kicking off my Final Fantasy series of blogs this Friday, but figured in the meantime I'd write a game review to get things going.  My Final Fantasy series is going to be a far more biographical and emotional experience than I imagine most folks expect, so it's gotta be balanced with some gaming goodness...

 

Super Meat Boy

Created primarily by Edmund McMillen (Artist/Designer) and Tommy Refenes (Programmer/Designer), Super Meat Boy is a love letter to the almighty platformer.  Featuring some 250+ levels, an absolutely crushing difficulty level, and more classic gaming nods than you can shake a stick at, Super Meat Boy is an ideal game for the retro lover in your life.

The set-up for SMB (intentional designation), is that the titular Meat Boy's girlfriend, Bandage Girl, is kidnapped by the evil Dr. Fetus, a fetus living in a glass jar wearing a suit (can any more awesome be contained in a single sentence?  Read on to find out). As such, Meat Boy needs to run through a gauntlet of buzzsaws, homing missiles, lava traps, salt factories, and all other manner of hazards to track down Dr. Fetus and save his wodie. As his name implies, Meat Boy is quite exposed to the elements... Without the protection of skin or armor, Meat Boy gets gibbed by touching almost anything except solid ground or a wall. Fortunately, in the hands of a skilled player, his speed and agility are more than enough to get you through the most dangerous of hazards.

If you ever played the 2D Super Mario Bros. series or MegaMan on NES, you may have entered "The Zone".  The Zone is that point when you're not really so much playing the game as you are the game; you've got the run button mashed down and you're coasting through the levels without a scratch from foes or platforming threats.  You anticipate jumps before the screen catches up to you and generally enter gaming God-hood.  Super Meat Boy seems tailor-made for playing in The Zone.

Meat Boy can't do much besides run and jump, and that's just what you do.  You start a level, and you run as fast as you can through every hazard to reach Bandage Girl (who immediately gets spirited to another castle, natch).  As you get the hang of his versatile wall jumping ability, you unlock faster and more creative methods for completing levels.  

Featuring 5 regular worlds of 20 levels each, a short final world, and an epilogue world with 20 additional levels, SMB offers plenty of bang for your buck.  And if you're feeling plenty brave, the game features a Dark World: the evil flipside to everything that came before.  So 5 Dark Worlds, a short final Dark World, and a Dark Epilogue.  These levels test even the mightiest of patience and twitch abilities and can only be unlocked by scoring an A+ in their Light World counterparts (which involves beating a specific time).

Get from Point A to Point B.  Any questions?

If Meat Boy were constrained by such archaic design decisions as lives, continues, or otherwise, the game would be a chore.  Instead, the designers chose to remove the penalty for death; when you die, you immediately respawn and can have another go.  When you finally beat a level, you're treated to a replay that contains not only your successful run, but all your failed runs from before.  No matter how many times I've played the game, it is always satisfying to watch 1,000 Meat Boys run to their deaths while one brave little guy struggles to the end.  And since levels are only about a 10 - 20 second run each, you're never far from the next challenge.

Besides all the delicious meat (har!) of the game, worlds are crammed with all manners of secrets, warp zones (whole retro-inspired levels of their own), collectibles, giltch levels, and even other playable characters to unlock, most of which pay tribute to other indie game designers.  It is absolutely amazing how much content and quality these two men were able to squeeze into Super Meat Boy, and if that's not enough, you can unlock a world called The Internetz, which features a slew of new stages and updates!

 

I would be remiss if this review went without giving credit to Danny Baranowsky, the man charged with creating this soundtrack.  Featuring a gumbo of grinding metal guitars, punk drumming, retro game sounds, and some hard dance thrown in, the soundtrack is a highlight of the experience.  I'm not sure if he was also responsible for the fantastic sound effects, but they're great, too.  My wife loves watching me play this game just to hear the *squiltch!* sound Meat Boy makes every time he meets his doom.

 

Super Meat Boy was one of the first games that really got me thinking about the decisions designers make when creating games.  The entire first world is explicitly designed so that you first learn a skill, then refine it over the next few levels.  Playing the game teaches you to play the game.  When I had the chance to see Indie Game: The Movie (which you should totally check out, if you have even the slightest interest in the subject), it was great to see Edmund McMillen acknowledge and emphasize that this was his intent all along.

 

By ameliorating the pain and frustration of death, while feeding you a steady diet of achievement through its short levels and stiff challenges, Super Meat Boy represents that ultimate intersection between flow and platforming success.  When you're on, the game practically plays itself, and when you're off, there are still plenty of challenges to take on and refine your skills.  It is a testament to the creative powers of a small team and how their dedication to an idea and to excellence was enough to carry them to success.  It stands as easily my favorite indepedently produced video game of this generation, if not my favorite of this generation, period.

 

TL:DR:

Get Super Meat Boy if you love retro platforming games, speed, a challenge, a fun art aesthetic, or the simplicity of a well-designed classic.

10/10 

 

Additional Reading:

Flow Theory : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Team Meat : http://supermeatboy.com/ (pics of the creators on the right side of the page)

Danny Baranowsky : http://www.dbsoundworks.com/

Indie Game: The Movie : http://buy.indiegamethemovie.com/ 

 

Questions:  Do you have a favorite indie game of this generation?  Anything that can top the incomparable Super Meat Boy?  I'd love to hear about it, or any other comments, questions or concerns below.  Goodspeed!