Super Meat Boy! Boy is it hard!

[K-bohls!]

Up until now I had thought Mafia II was going to be my personal goty.cx, but Super Meat Boy has fulfilled all my expectations and then some. There is so much to say about this game; so I'm going to talk about all of it right here.

Like everyone else on the internet I agree the controls feel great. They managed to make Meat Boy super powerful with out him being uncontrollable. The distances you can leap are incredible and its more amazing that you are able to land on a single block floating in mid air frequently. Unlocked characters have their own feel that you need to learn before being particularly useful which I think is great, showing that they didn't just do color swaps with different abilities. I unlocked "The Kid" after a solid 4 hours of play and he is very interesting because he doesn't move as fast or single jump as far, but his double jump and air control more than make up for his weaknesses. It very cool, and when they did this with ten characters you know Team Meat did something great.

The levels also are amazing and impressive. They are always able to introduce a new mechanic every few levels, iterate on it, and then turn it on its head to surprise you with a depth that may in fact please you. Like I said I unlocked The Kid after playing the same 3 levels over and over. The first one is probably the hardest but I never felt frustrated being that it never took more than 10-15 seconds to get to where I just died and more importantly it had the strong feeling of "just one more try." From there they got easier but still maintained a level of challenge without frustration. (I have a lot more to say about level two of The Kid set but that would make this post even longer).

I think the story is great and probably should be talked about more. Watching preview coverage for this game I saw what looked like an "end of the world story" but nobody ever really mentioned it. I was pleasantly surprised when I was right about a conflict that gradually ramps up to the end times. But more than that I love the gradual degradation of color from the world until all there is is black, white, and the red of Meat Boy. It's absolutely great.

So in the end I am super impressed with Super Meat Boy. Having played the shit out of the flash Meat Boy finally playing Super is like a dream come true. It is amazing and I have so many good things so say about what Team Meat, a team of two dudes, managed to accomplish better then what most huge development studios could do. Also, there is a lot of content in this game and by the looks of it more is going to be added by Team Meat and by the community when the level editor comes out, for now I am blown away but what they have managed to do. And if they ever get their leader boards to be not confusing as shit then I will just simply send them my wallet. Lastly if anyone who is playing it wants to add me to Steam that would be sweet because I want to flesh out the friends leader board in a video game finally.

[Snooglebum]

I actually had a seizure while playing Super Meat Boy, so it's sadistic in more ways then one.

[CaptainFish]

My computer crashed during a run and I lost all my progress. I am the saddest Meat Boy.

[K-bohls!]

Is it bad that I just spent more money on the soundtrack then I did on the actual game? Either way Super Meat Boy is by far my favorite game of the past few years. Many a night has been spent getting my beautiful 106% and now I'm still going for Iron Man runs (of which I have done the first four light worlds).

Super Meat Boy has some great music and I suggest everyone give it a listen here and maybe pick up a copy of the new CD. The man who did Super Meat Boy's music also did the fantastic Canabalt theme as well so I am happy to support him.

So, just dropping in to continue supporting one of the best games and hopefully spur some conversation.

[Erkki]

I think I'm actually starting to like Super Meat Boy a bit! After something Edmund McMillen said in Indie Game The Movie, I figured maybe my first attempt at playing it was a bit misguided. I remember lots of frustration, but I think I skipped some levels or missed some detail about the controls or went straight to some harder levels. I'm doing better this time, doing the levels in the linear order.

[dibs]

I can't get past the bloody race boss. I get to the upper part and explode on the 3rd or 4th jump.

[Twig]

Just seeing the title of this thread reminded me how much I goddamn love Super Meat Boy. Ahhh, I should just play it through again for funsies.

[hyretic]

I can't get past the bloody race boss. I get to the upper part and explode on the 3rd or 4th jump.

I was stuck on that level for a while too. Come to think of it, there have been five for six occasions where I've thought "I'm literally never going to be able to beat this level" and thinking that I was done with the game. Somehow though, turning the game off and coming back to it a few days later seems to recharge my powers and I get there eventually. I'm currently a few levels into 'The End'. A game this hard is so sweetly satisfying when you complete a level.

[Security_Tubbs]

I played it with all settings on Low until I reached the Hell levels. At that point, despite the lowest possible graphical settings, the game started lagging, slowing down and speeding up. Therefore, SMB is on hold until I get a better computer.

I did love it though. One of the great things is the really short time it takes to respawn. If I had to sit through even a short loading screen, or select "Continue", the frustration of dying at the same spot for the 50th time would certainly increase. Having an almost instant respawn doesn't give you (much) time to start throwing things around.

[Erkki]

I think my problem when playing the first time was that I thought this was a game that constantly required quick reaction times or very precise movement. Well, it does require the latter occasionally, but in most of the levels it seems the fastest path is actually the easiest one. This means you just figure out the quickest path and memorize all the movements needed to complete it -- instantaneous restarts make that easy.

So it's not about quick reaction at all (mostly) -- once you start reacting to things, you've already lost (at least when it comes to getting a good time). I find this to be a very cool aspect of the design -- essentially making speedrunning the easiest way to play.

The leaderboards seem fucked up, though -- there are some zeroes in there, and even with a seemingly very fast time, I was the 11000th on a level.

[plasticsaber]

I think my problem when playing the first time was that I thought this was a game that constantly required quick reaction times or very precise movement. Well, it does require the latter occasionally, but in most of the levels it seems the fastest path is actually the easiest one. This means you just figure out the quickest path and memorize all the movements needed to complete it -- instantaneous restarts make that easy.

You say memorize, and you're right, but I feel obliged to qualify that by saying it's not arbitrary, rote memorization; it feels more like finding the "rhythm" of a level, and building the muscle memory needed to accompany that rhythm. To me it feels a lot like learning to perform a difficult passage of music.

[Donk]

I had rage quit it before but now I'm loving it, blew through the first 3 chapters in 2 sittings. It's awesome.