Genre: Platformer
Year: 2010
Developed by: Team Meat
Published by: Team Meat
Platforms: XBOX 360, OS X, PS4, Linux, Vita, Wii U, Switch
#160
Feeling Like: Top Sirloin, Rare
Games like Super Meat Boy or Celeste live and die by their controls. You can talk all you want about presentation, or graphics or the soundtrack or the level design but the very fine line between enjoying a hard as nails platformer and uninstalling it after a few attempts lies in how refined the movement feels. If you’re going to be this demanding from players, you better make it so every jump, sprint and mid-air alteration feels perfect.
And it does.
This is a game that’s deep rooted in the fundamentals of old school games. Naturally the main influence is Super Mario Bros. with the classic platforming and your meat princess constantly being in another castle. Even the initials “SMB” mirrors Super Mario Bros. I never felt like I was playing a Mario game though…maybe an edgy cousin who didn’t make it to every family gathering. With blood on their jacket.
The visuals are simplistic, but effective. You, your target, the obstacles and the areas you can land on are easily identifiable. Each level is generally a single screen and can be completed in a few seconds, if you know what you’re doing. Mercifully, the game’s respawn rate is among the fastest I’ve ever seen and I think this is an underrated reason as to why Super Meat Boy works.
When you die, and you will die a lot, you’re instantly thrown back to the starting point, and I mean instantly. There’s no delay, no elongated death animation, no loading screen. And little to no frustration when you perish for that very reason. Because the punishment is so minimal you’re encouraged to dive right in to figure out the twists, turns and timing of each stage. There’s no better teacher than failure and you will learn quickly in Super Meat Boy. By the time we finished the game, we had 5,757 deaths.
If you want to get a taste of how rage-inducing it can be, have a look.
Another brilliant addition is upon completing a level, the game will show you a simultaneous replay of every attempt, meaning you’re going to see a few, or dozens, or even hundreds of Meat Boys meet their not-so-ultimate demise, save for the one who finally made it. It’s immensely satisfying and cathartic to see your hard work rewarded. And slightly funny.
Kyla and I played through it together; it’s hardly a co-operative game, so we’d pass the controller back and forth after five deaths each. Since the harder levels become puzzles in themselves, it was a treat to have a partner in crime to figure out just exactly how we could avoid that buzzsaw.
Jump, hop, slide, splat. Darn.
Jump, hop, slide, keep sliding, hop, splat. Shoot.
Jump, hop, slide, keep sliding, hop, double hop, we got it! Nice!
Ok writing out our verbal tactics doesn’t quite paint the clearest picture, but that’s how every stage went. It’s not quite on the level of Katana Zero but each stage had a solution – looking before we leapt led to a much greater chance of success. Teamwork makes the dream work.
What helped entice us to play Super Meat Boy in the first place was the documentary “Indie Game: The Movie“. Seeing the trials and tribulations with the two founders of Team Meat really made us want to contribute to their success. And, naturally, enjoy the terrific product they produced. It’s old hat to repeat, but the fact that something of this quality can be spawned with a handful of talented, hardworking creators is mind-boggling.
I’m so glad this was released to widespread acclaim on the XBOX 360 in 2010. I just learned that it was a Flash game at first, released in 2008. It’s a testament to the reach and appeal of the emerging digital download space in that era. It was clear that just because games were starting to look like Gears of War 2, doesn’t necessarily mean that players were tired of classic, two dimensional experiences. A good game is a good game, regardless of how it looks.
But the controls have to be perfect.
The 500 