Video Game Assessment: Super Meat Boy (2010)

SUUUUUUPPPPPEEERRRRRR MEEEEEEEEEEEATTTTTTT BOOOOYYY!!!!!

I started playing Super Meat Boy recently after I fell in love with The Binding of Isaac. Since both games have similar art styles and developers, I really hoped that I would enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed Isaac. And you know something? I did. I really did. I mean, not in the same way or anything. Isaac is a Roguelike with random rooms, random items, and random enemies for the most part. It plays completely differently than the platform and memorization hell that Meat Boy presents. But they both have the same humor, the same sorts of references to other video games and popular culture, and they both are very tongue-in-cheek at points. They are also both really fun to play.

The game, though, is something of an oddity in this day and age. It is a callback to some of the ridiculously hard platformer games that came out on old systems like the NES, SNES, etc. It is a very difficult game on top of everything else anyway. And when I say difficult, OH BOY. I MEAN DIFFICULT IF YOU CATCH MY MEANING. It's difficult, okay? It's frustratingly hard at times with actually beating a tough level being incredibly satisfying, which happens less and less in this era of simple and easy video games marketed towards a increasingly casual market who don't want challenges, don't want to get lost in the game, and who don't want to spend time actually getting good at it. Like any good video game player, I must scoff and turn my nose up at those people in a ridiculously exaggerated manner.

Nah, not really. I personally don't like the casual game market, but I don't think it's a bad thing either. Just not what I'm looking for. I like getting very skilled in a set of games or enjoying stories, worlds, characters, etc. And because of that casual games just don't appeal to me, but Super Meat Boy is certainly not a casual game. You have to master the controls if you even want to think of getting to later levels. You have to literally be pixel perfect to play the game effectively.

The game starts out simply enough with easy mechanics, simple jumps and movements, wall jumps, running, collecting items called bandages to unlock different characters to play as. Ordinary stuff. And then you realize that you are playing as a man made out of meat. And that this Meat Person, or "Meat Boy,"  has a girlfriend made out of bandages, "Bandage Girl," who's in turn been kidnapped by a fetus in a jar with a monocle and a top hat, "Dr. Fetus." Okay, it's  an odd game. Unique and really different. The story doesn't really matter much more than an early Mario game, although the story is told better in this game and some of the cutscenes are actually kind of brilliant, hilarious, and all kinds of well done.

I consider myself pretty decent at platformers. I grew up playing them on the NES and the SNES. I loved the old Super Star Wars games (I played them to death.), the early main Mario Bros. games, the Donkey Kong Country games, and the Metroid games. I'm sure there are others too. But I have to say that I've never played anything quite as difficult as Super Meat Boy, at least not that I can actively remember at the moment.

Frustrating may be a better and more appropriate term. There were times that I played the game and just wanted to heave my controller through my television, rant and scream, and then finally curl up into the fetal position and grow a top hat and monocle and murder meat... Seriously, just let the damn piece of meat burn in the fires of his own making... watch him... uh...

Um... yeah? My point is that the game starts off easy but gets hard very quickly.If you do not master the controls you will find yourself unable to complete many levels. It took me a while to be able to become good enough to get to the last world of the game. I still haven't collected everything nor have I beaten every level in the game yet, although slowly but surely I'm getting better at everything.

There is one level... it's a character unlock level, of which there is one to the normal worlds... and anybody who has played the game knows which level I'm talking about. I have found endless difficulties with that level to the point where I played a level I should be able to beat in under a minute for about four hours straight. I beat the first level, but had so much trouble on the next that I had to quit, therefore losing all of my progress. Woo-boy was I unhappy with that one.

I played the game on the Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade), but it is also available on Steam at the very least. It's a great game. It has hours and hours and hours worth of gameplay. It is difficult enough to make you earn every hour you play and every victory you gain. I like the game, but the frustration cannot be summed up by a person who has never played it. It's terribly difficult, a callback to older days, and I certainly wish  more games like it would exist.

All of that being said, with its unique story and characters, great controls and gameplay, and difficult challenge, I find this game to be perfect for a video game player like myself. I love the difficulty and the challenge. It gives me something to strive for within the game, something to push myself forward to accomplish. So, I'll recommend this game to those who like an interesting and unique challenge of a video game, but don't say I didn't warn you...

Video Game Assessment: The Binding of Isaac (2011)

"BLASPHEMY!" I did not yell about this game because that would be incredibly stupid. I have to roll my eyes about how people can be so sensitive about anything and everything in this age of information and knowledge. Everything can and probably is offensive in some way. Why do people have to take these things so personally. Look, I'll be offensive right now. I dislike most people and think that their opinions are more than likely wrong if they disagree with my own. Does that make me a bad person? Probably, but in my head I'm not bad at all. My friends think I'm okay. My family likes me well enough. My girlfriend doesn't abuse me that often... Look, my point here isn't that offensive material or potentially offensive material be blocked, but rather that it should be embraced. If you call me hurtful names, I'm going to brush it off, maybe even embrace those names because... why not? I'm pretty sure my taste in movies has been insulted too many times to count. I would rather watch 1408 than The Third Man, rather see 12 Monkeys  than The Matrix or Dark City. I prefer anything to Shutter Island. My point is that this rather offends some people despite that being my own personal opinion. I'm not wrong, but that doesn't make me right either. My point is that people should stop being sensitive and just shut up. If you're offended by The Binding of Isaac, don't play it. Simple as that. if you're offended by gay romances in Mass Effect 3, don't romance the gay characters. I mean... how difficult is it to avoid these things? Answer: Not very.

I start out with the controversy when I'm talking about this game because the religious or anti-religious content in this game is... well, it's barely there at all. The story is simple, barely touched upon at all. Yes, this game seems to make fun of hardcore evangelical Christianity, but why shouldn't that be allowed? It should and has to be allowed. It's a freedom of expression and speech. If a person is comfortable with their beliefs than why should this be blasphemous or dangerous or insidious or whatever else? It's a fun little game with a bunch of incredibly well done items that seem to critique the ideas of Christianity in some very silly ways. If it's taken seriously, then maybe some hardcore Christians should take a long, hard look at themselves, and if it's simply a parody of these beliefs, then why is it inflaming so many people?

I guess the fact that other "mainstream" systems that aren't Steam aren't accepting The Binding of Isaac into their game libraries peeves me off a little. It's unfair to this incredibly clever game. So should people be upset about this game? No. It's a game, people, a fun, enjoyable experience with some religious overtones. It has a not dissimilar feel to the novel Carrie by Stephen King. Why is that novel or the movie not screamed at and about? It's like people are afraid that children and other people who play this game may start to doubt beliefs... Hmmm. if a video game has the ability to steer people away from beliefs then I guess those beliefs are pretty shoddy, wouldn't you say? I kid to a point, but seriously, this game is ridiculous and strange and has no real bearing on anybody who is a normally religious person. It isn't subversive or angry about religion. It simply states a story, in my opinion, through the eyes of an extremely disturbed and abused child. His mother is "religious" and hear the voice of "God" telling her to kill her son, Isaac. That sounds like a suspiciously similar story to the actual binding of Isaac by Abraham in the Bible itself, a story that is pretty odd on its front too, trying to show that trust in God is more important than earthly anythings. Now, I'm not going to scream at the Bible or anything. It's a story. I doubt very many people hear the voice of God telling them to kill their children, and I think it's something that wouldn't happen today. A child is incredibly important, and as a parent, even if God tells you to kill that child, it is your responsibility to not do that. That would be really stupid on both God's part and the part of the parent. So, showing this religious mother attempting to kill her neglected, abused, and naked son is reprehensible and insane, and maybe a good way to show how the Bible can at times be absolutely ridiculous and unrealistic, which isn't a bad thing.

Anyway, the game itself is endless fun. Unlocking different items is always fun and different combinations of different items work differently and give each and every game a different feel. It's a game that I compare to the original Legend of Zelda, and it plays fairly similarly to that and has clear homages to it as well in terms of the item rooms and some of the bosses and enemies. You can play as six different characters in the game; all of them play differently and each (except the joke character) has a religious name like Isaac himself does: Magdalene, Judas, Cain, and Eve. Another character, Samson, is slated for the expansion The Wrath of the Lamb, which comes out at the end of the month.

The main enemy of the game seems to be Isaac's mom herself, but really, in the end, it seems to be Satan. In find that both comical and interesting. The game is incredibly fun.It's enjoyable to play at any time,but does have its own frustrations and difficulties. I've run into a few bugs, usually not terrible ones, but bugs nonetheless. Most of them have been character models disappearing or color palettes changing around at odd times. The game can be incredibly difficult at times and is often very luck based, which can be problematic for the harder to play characters like Eve and ???. If the right materials and items are not dropped, those characters will often fail to defeat the game. There are eleven different endings and the game ramps up the difficulty after you finish the game a certain amount of times. It's only available on Steam, which due to my owning an incredibly crappy computer, meant that to play it I had to install Steam. I did and the game works well, but I really would have rather not installed Steam if given the choice. I wish the game could have been on other platforms. It's rather sad that it isn't.

Anyway, this is an extremely enjoyable, almost addictive game, and should be played by everybody. I spent $4.99 on the game and it was worth every penny for the hours of gameplay and enjoyment I received from it. I also hope that I offend at least one person with this review and what I see herein. Or at least anger some people because of the assumed censorship going on. Man, I would love to have actually offended someone. That would make my day. This game isn't worth people getting up in arms about it. It's a fun experience that does not really need anybody outraged against it. Seriously, anybody outraged needs to reassess their lives and what actually really matters in those lives.

Anyhow, I recommend this game to anybody with a decent computer. It's fun, addictive, challenging, and altogether a really well put together game. It's made by Edmund McMillen, co-creator of Super Meat Boy, and it shows, with this game having a very similar art style and even some of the same characters from Super Meat Boy. Oh, I should probably mention that this game is considered in the Roguelike genre, despite the fact that I've never played Rogue.