Welcome, children. Gather round ol' EmJay for a story. Hey! Get back here Billy, before I dunk your head in the toilet again for sassing me! OK, now that you're all here, I want to tell you a tale of the long, long-ago. The before time. Far back in the past (late last year), during the time when all white North Americans gave thanks to their eldritch, heathen gods for their bounty of green bean casseroles and backyard pools filled with gravy, there was a contest. It was an epic battle of zeroes and ones, fought in the mystical land of Steam, ruled by the great New-ell and the Valve horde. What was this unimaginably cool-sounding contest, you ask? You didn't ask? Well fuck your eyeballs with a horse dick and throw yourself off a cliff! You aren't welcome here.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. The people who ran the Steam service were holding a contest for their users. You could win the top 5 games in your wishlist, regardless of price. I read about it the night of the contest and thought to myself, "self, free games are pretty cool, so quit masturbating to beluga whale dominatrix fetish porn and enter!" So I put the requisite 5+ games in my list, hoping to win but realizing I had a better chance of being struck in the ass by lightning and having the smoldering ass-vapors turn into a clown.
Later that night, after I had pounded down a few beers and was suitably inebriated, I decided to check my email. I saw a notice saying that I'd won the games I put into my wishlist and kind of gave a little laugh. You know the kind. Incredulity mixed with a headrush of endorphins akin to the experience of a schoolgirl who just saw the Beatles in concert for the first time. I'd actually won something on the internet! Holy flaming shitburgers, hooray for random numbers!
One of the games I won was Super Meat Boy. It is the hardest platformer I've ever played, bar none. It is in the running for hardest game I've ever played, period. Super Meat Boy takes whatever you thought you knew about platformers and puts it to the test, grinding it up into bloody chunks and spitting it back in your face with a defiant, offal-spewing laugh. Saying this game is hard is like saying the core of the sun is a wee bit toasty. Technically accurate, but woefully wanting in the flowery, descriptive adjective department.
You play as Meat Boy. He's a boy like anyone else, except that he exists as a kind of square, semi-deformed midget. Also he has no skin. His main squeeze, Bandage Girl, has been kidnapped by the angry and diabolical Dr. Fetus. The doctor is basically a sentient fetus in a monocled jar which has been put into a mobile tuxedo suit. And he hates you!
You run and jump through each short level in an attempt to reach Bandage Girl and save her from Dr. Fetus. The stages are designed to last less than around a minute or so, and some last fewer seconds than you can count on one hand, but you will spend hours trying to beat the more difficult of them. They're filled with wonderful implements of death such as massive circular sawblades, giant piles of used hypodermic needles, heaping piles of salt (because who doesn't like rubbing salt all over a skinless wound?), guided missiles, unguided missiles, guided saw blades, maggots, fire, and all other manner of things that will instantly render you an exploded pile of gore. Life bars? Hah! We don't need no stinkin' life bars!
I love this game. I would have this game's babies. Why do I profess such a disturbing (and anatomically impossible) level of love for this game? Because despite being almost as hard as my gigantic, pendulous testicles, the game never feels cheap (unlike my gigantic, pendulous testicles). It is only hard because you aren't good enough to beat it yet. This game pushes your reflexes to the absolute limit. By the time you beat some of the stages, you are operating with 2 sore thumbs on muscle memory alone, using the visual cues of the game only as a subconcious trigger for the neurons in your brain to fire the nerves in your fingers. Every other platformer suddenly feels easier after you play this game. Long story short, it makes you a better gamer.
Also, there are innumerable things to do in the levels that add to the replay value, like beat the level under the par time, or find hidden warp zones to unlock secret characters, or get insanely hard to reach bandages that unlock even more characters. As of this writing I've played nearly 25 hours, and I've only gotten about 75% of the game completed. The parts I haven't finished yet are nightmarishly difficult, and I'll probably be trying to beat them for a long time to come.
There is one drawback, however. It's the pesky human tendency to become violently and animalistically enraged that inevitably creeps in after a long attempt to beat a particularly hard level. If you can play it long enough to get good without hurling your gamepad through your monitor and eating your pets, then you've managed the kind of self-control this game demands. I've called "bullshit!" so many times I long ago lost count. Nevermind the fact that I can't count past 8. But it wasn't that I was mad at the game. I was always mad at myself. Mad because I hesitated a tenth of a second too long to make a jump, or because I didn't wiggle my left thumb quickly enough to dodge a giant sawblade before it cleft my meaty bodice in twain. Mad because I fell down a hole for the 18th time instead of landing on a platform I knew was there. Unlike the rap scene, you can't hate the game, you can only hate the playa. However, if you can get past this bit of self-loathing, you'll eventually realize you are starting to get really, really good at the game.
If you are a fan of old-school platformers that demanded quick reflexes, like Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers, you will love this game to death. It's funny, wierd, and sometimes downright masochistic to play, but dammit, it's good. Too good to pass up. Do yourself a favor, buy a wired Xbox 360 gamepad, shove it in your computer's USB port, and buy this game. It's cheap, but the replay value is through the roof.
You will spend hours challenging your reflexes and pushing yourself to the brink of madness, but when you finally beat that one level that's been bugging you, you'll feel like royalty. Like you just climbed Mt. Everest alone, without an oxygen tank, in your underwear, and when you finally reached the summit you had hot monkey sex with every one of the 10 supermodels you carried on your shoulders because you felt like a challenge that day. Yeah, it feels pretty good. Buy it!
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. The people who ran the Steam service were holding a contest for their users. You could win the top 5 games in your wishlist, regardless of price. I read about it the night of the contest and thought to myself, "self, free games are pretty cool, so quit masturbating to beluga whale dominatrix fetish porn and enter!" So I put the requisite 5+ games in my list, hoping to win but realizing I had a better chance of being struck in the ass by lightning and having the smoldering ass-vapors turn into a clown.
Later that night, after I had pounded down a few beers and was suitably inebriated, I decided to check my email. I saw a notice saying that I'd won the games I put into my wishlist and kind of gave a little laugh. You know the kind. Incredulity mixed with a headrush of endorphins akin to the experience of a schoolgirl who just saw the Beatles in concert for the first time. I'd actually won something on the internet! Holy flaming shitburgers, hooray for random numbers!
One of the games I won was Super Meat Boy. It is the hardest platformer I've ever played, bar none. It is in the running for hardest game I've ever played, period. Super Meat Boy takes whatever you thought you knew about platformers and puts it to the test, grinding it up into bloody chunks and spitting it back in your face with a defiant, offal-spewing laugh. Saying this game is hard is like saying the core of the sun is a wee bit toasty. Technically accurate, but woefully wanting in the flowery, descriptive adjective department.
Epic!
You play as Meat Boy. He's a boy like anyone else, except that he exists as a kind of square, semi-deformed midget. Also he has no skin. His main squeeze, Bandage Girl, has been kidnapped by the angry and diabolical Dr. Fetus. The doctor is basically a sentient fetus in a monocled jar which has been put into a mobile tuxedo suit. And he hates you!
You run and jump through each short level in an attempt to reach Bandage Girl and save her from Dr. Fetus. The stages are designed to last less than around a minute or so, and some last fewer seconds than you can count on one hand, but you will spend hours trying to beat the more difficult of them. They're filled with wonderful implements of death such as massive circular sawblades, giant piles of used hypodermic needles, heaping piles of salt (because who doesn't like rubbing salt all over a skinless wound?), guided missiles, unguided missiles, guided saw blades, maggots, fire, and all other manner of things that will instantly render you an exploded pile of gore. Life bars? Hah! We don't need no stinkin' life bars!
I love this game. I would have this game's babies. Why do I profess such a disturbing (and anatomically impossible) level of love for this game? Because despite being almost as hard as my gigantic, pendulous testicles, the game never feels cheap (unlike my gigantic, pendulous testicles). It is only hard because you aren't good enough to beat it yet. This game pushes your reflexes to the absolute limit. By the time you beat some of the stages, you are operating with 2 sore thumbs on muscle memory alone, using the visual cues of the game only as a subconcious trigger for the neurons in your brain to fire the nerves in your fingers. Every other platformer suddenly feels easier after you play this game. Long story short, it makes you a better gamer.
Also, there are innumerable things to do in the levels that add to the replay value, like beat the level under the par time, or find hidden warp zones to unlock secret characters, or get insanely hard to reach bandages that unlock even more characters. As of this writing I've played nearly 25 hours, and I've only gotten about 75% of the game completed. The parts I haven't finished yet are nightmarishly difficult, and I'll probably be trying to beat them for a long time to come.
There is one drawback, however. It's the pesky human tendency to become violently and animalistically enraged that inevitably creeps in after a long attempt to beat a particularly hard level. If you can play it long enough to get good without hurling your gamepad through your monitor and eating your pets, then you've managed the kind of self-control this game demands. I've called "bullshit!" so many times I long ago lost count. Nevermind the fact that I can't count past 8. But it wasn't that I was mad at the game. I was always mad at myself. Mad because I hesitated a tenth of a second too long to make a jump, or because I didn't wiggle my left thumb quickly enough to dodge a giant sawblade before it cleft my meaty bodice in twain. Mad because I fell down a hole for the 18th time instead of landing on a platform I knew was there. Unlike the rap scene, you can't hate the game, you can only hate the playa. However, if you can get past this bit of self-loathing, you'll eventually realize you are starting to get really, really good at the game.
If you are a fan of old-school platformers that demanded quick reflexes, like Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers, you will love this game to death. It's funny, wierd, and sometimes downright masochistic to play, but dammit, it's good. Too good to pass up. Do yourself a favor, buy a wired Xbox 360 gamepad, shove it in your computer's USB port, and buy this game. It's cheap, but the replay value is through the roof.
You will spend hours challenging your reflexes and pushing yourself to the brink of madness, but when you finally beat that one level that's been bugging you, you'll feel like royalty. Like you just climbed Mt. Everest alone, without an oxygen tank, in your underwear, and when you finally reached the summit you had hot monkey sex with every one of the 10 supermodels you carried on your shoulders because you felt like a challenge that day. Yeah, it feels pretty good. Buy it!
Thumb up!
That is the best videogame review i've ever read. I think you might have found your true calling. You should think about doing more.
ReplyDeleteCheck out this article: http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0706KLOSTER_66
I think he ascribes way too much importance to the place of video games in american culture, but you are pretty much what he's looking for.