Review: Super Meat Boy (XBLA)

The 'bloodiest" T-rated game you will ever play. I like the color of blood... it's also the color of sausage.

Super Meat Boy is an "F" you type of game. It will be "fun for you," or "frustrating for you." If you happen to be me, Super Meat Boy will magically "F" you twice with his meat; I found the game both fun and frustrating.

My frustration stems from one key issue: the controls. The controls are not terrible by any means; they feel good most of the time, but I do find them occasionally imprecise. I may desire to jump at a specific time, only to see Mr. Meat run right into a pool of death. This doesn't happen all the time, but in a game that is all about precision and timing; a lack of precision, at any time, is a problem.

With this occasional lack of precision, I died on numerous occasions (and you will too); however, deaths will come naturally as the game gets ridiculously hard. Thankfully, you are rewarded for your excessive deaths. Upon completion of a level, you will see a replay of your successful run, along with every single death simultaneously. This seems like such a simple idea, but seeing it in action is truly awesome. It makes me want to purposefully kill myself at least a baker's dozen worth of deaths (more than twelve times?! You crazy) just to see them in their beautiful replay glory.

The graphics won't blow you away, but the simplicity and subtlety is quite nice.

Super Meat Boy also features numerous shout outs to other indie games/franchises, such as Bit.Trip, Braid, and Alien Hominid, with the ability to unlock characters with their own strengths and weaknesses; it is also possible to unlock the Kid from I Wanna Be the Guy (key word: possible). Unlocking all of the characters won't be easy, but doing so will earn you some mighty fine bragging rights (it won't hurt your gamerscore either).

Super Meat Boy managed to fill my current masochistic desires and it has a great sense of humor (odd humor), but it fails to reach my love for games like 'Splosion Man and N+. If you enjoyed the previously mentioned games and don't mind a challenge - - don't expect to easily beat this meat -- you will probably love this game. If not, you may (probably) hate this game, but thankfully that is why we have a thing called "demos." For me, Super Meat Boy will live as a good game, but it failed to meet my expectations of greatness.

*NOTE* - I did "beat" Super Meat Boy, so please don't take my lack of super-love for this game as just my personal suckage at video games. Also, it is worth beating the game as you get a pretty damn fine avatar award for your trouble. One final note: Super Meat Boy will have a launch sale for 800MS points, before raising the price to the regular 1200MS points. This sale is for a "limited time" and may or may not last until the end of October. I am not 100% sure on the sale's length and will jump to full price after November 21st, so you may want to be quick about picking up this piece of meat. I also immediately apologize for all of my terrible jokes. Thank you, and good night.