Super Meat Boy Cures 99% of NES Mario Nostalgia

I count my blessings every day (for the past two days) that I impulsively downloaded Super Meat Boy in the Xbox Live Arcade. While I was initially borderline horrified by the game’s title, what reservations I had immediately melted away into sweet platformer bliss. This indie game, crafted by two admittedly weird seeming dudes in a dimly lit something or other somewhere, is making wavesbig time. And it’s hard not to be ecstatically happy for these guys: a team of two indie developers stumble their way into making an instant modern classic, every bit deserving of its repeated comparisons to the holiest, most canonical video game of all time? That just rocks.

Now on to the game. Super Meat Boy is a platformer, much like its Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man pedigree, and, much like those titles, it’s an absolute joy to play. Pick up the controller and you’ll be blown away by the game’s responsivity; the controls make the titular meat-hero the most agile, zippy little clump of pixels you’ve ever seen. And believe me, you’ll need all the help you can get. The game eases you into its mechanics of course, wall-jumping, sprint-jumping and the like, but it’s soon obvious that Super Meat Boy doesn’t f*ck around.

The goal of each level is simple enough: navigate meat boy to his girlfriend, a little white clump of pixels named “bandage girl.” You can complete each level in about 20 seconds, if you play your cards right. But you probably won’t and you’ll slaughter meat boy mercilessly again and again on buzz saws, in fire pits and, well, mainly just on buzz saws.

The level design is impeccable but difficult. It’s not unusual to spend twenty something tries on a challenging course, but inexplicably, every bit of your failure is rewarding. It sounds like you’d want to throw your whole 360 out a sixth-story window when you’ve watched your little red hero splatter against sharp thing after sharp thing, but the game is so brilliantly conceived that success boils down to skill alone (and sometimes skill takes practice). When meat boy dies (and dies, and dies), you respawn instantly and have another go because it’s that fun.

And if all of this wasn’t enough, on top on the main game you can unlock dark levels (harder versions of each level), brutal “warp levels” and hidden characters from other indie titles (like Tim from Braid and Commander Video, this amazing floaty ninja who leaves rainbows in his path).

All told, Super Meat Boy offers up 300 levels of pure, seemingly intravenous joy. To miss it would be criminal. If you don’t play Super Meat Boy, I may never talk to you again. Unless you don’t have a 360, but probably you should look in your neighbor’s windows until you find someone who does and then try to memorize the code on their garage-door keypad thing, gaining entry to their home and thereby access to this game. But if breaking and entering isn’t your thing (whatever), the game is due out on the Wii and the PC some time in the probably not-distant future.

The bottom line is: get your hands on this gameSuper Meat Boy is an absolute triumph of modern gaming, remixing 90s-esque cartoon oddness with sublimely precise platforming into a glorious black hole of retro video game bliss.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

taylor

Taylor has written 136 articles for us.

15 Comments

  1. i feel strongly that super meat boy and bandage girl are like a modern day romeo and juliet, forever bloodying the oppressive buzz saws that stand in the way of their oozing, perfect love

  2. it’s sort of difficult to tell in this article if you have really strong feelings about super meat boy.

  3. This game is hilarious! I love the sound effects and fluid animation. Definitely would recommend this to gamers (and non-gamers) who need a break in-between mission campaigns and school work.

  4. this sounds fantastic. Will pick it up for Wii, mebbe it will cure my Other M blues, restore my faith in modern gaming, etc.

  5. I love how this site has damn near everything i need: games/nerd times, news on the LGBT community, and chicks. God I love chicks ^_^

  6. This is something I need in my life. Like immediately.

    Do you have any further tips on “home invasion” because I think I’m just going to go that route.

    • damn it, i was about to just sayin’ that.

      but srsly tho, smug hipster high fives for us, Cee, for being into meat boy before it was cool. smug, smug, smug.

  7. On a semi-related note, do any of you play Minecraft? I swear, that shit is AMAZING. Just the sheer satisfaction of EXPLORING A WORLD, and that feeling you get when you see your house/castle/floating island home on the horizon, knowing that you’re safe from the zombies and skeletons? Something no other game has ever been able to duplicate for me. I swear, Minecraft, with all of its 16×16 pixel textures, is more immersive than anything else I’ve played in…years, really.

    If you haven’t played it, this series of reviews/accounts ought to convince you. And it’s cheap! And you get updates for life! And you can build WHATEVER YOU WANT AND IT IS SO SATISFYING. Seriously, GET THIS GAME.

  8. Um, Taylor. My brother is going to be very upset with me when I jack his Xbox. I may send him direction. Kay?

Comments are closed.