Super Meat Boy – Perfecting the Art of Swearing

It’s important to note at the beginning that this is not really a review of Super Meat Boy. 

 

Super Meat Boy cannot be reviewed properly, mainly because it is impossible to vocalise any response to it, other than the ‘primal scream into a pillow held over your own face’, which isn’t looked highly upon by editors. I suppose the closest I can get to a review is to say this in the highest possible terms:

 

Super Meat Boy reminds you all the time what gaming is all about. Swearing.

 

Swearing because, in the first second of a level you’ve failed countless times before you throw yourself into the path of a saw blade. Swearing because the knock on the front door removed your focus for the tiniest second sending you plunging into a pile of dirty needles. Swearing because you’ve been gripping the controller so hard and stabbing at the A button with such ferocity that the tip of your thumb hurts.

 

And you keep swearing, and you keep playing, because it’s so damn good that you can’t stop. I was playing with a friend (which, by the way, is an excellent tactic, as you can pass the controller around and insult each other’s incompetence in turn) who asked, out of the blue after an hour and a half: ‘Why? Why are we playing this?’ and we couldn’t properly answer. It’s wonderful. It’s the pure, endless, addictive essence of swearing. 

 

Let me give you some idea of how a play session of Super Meat Boy works. I’ve broken it down into a psychological document that I like to call ‘The Eight Stages of Super Meat Boy’. 

 

1. Enjoyment – At this stage the game is what it at first appears to be. A simple, Mario-esque side scrolling platformer, with infinite lives and a cute story and art style. 

 

Key Quote: ‘This is cool. I like this. Listen! He sounds so cute when he runs around.’

 

2. Irritation – By this stage, you’ll have died several times, often at exactly the same point in the level. A sweeping saw will have destroyed you fourteen or fifteen times consecutively, and the closed Fallout: New Vegas box next to your console will start to look very tempting. 

 

Key Quote: ‘Well, this will look cool on the level replay’ * 

 

This is a horrible level. Horrible. 

 

3. Determination – Sure, you’ve died a lot, but now you won’t be beaten. ‘It’s just a game’ you say to yourself. ‘Someone must have beaten it’. This is a dangerous thought. 

 

Key Quote: ‘All right Dr. Fetus. You’ve had your chance, but I’m going to complete this level, and then I’m going to stop’. 

 

4. Anger – This one is pretty self explanatory. By now, you’ve died several times on almost every hazard in the level. This is the stage when the ‘Official Noise of Super Meat Boy’ is introduced. It goes ‘NNNGH!’ and happens when you die. 

 

Key Quote: ‘NNNGH!’

 

5. Incandescent Anger – This, on the other hand, is very specific. It occurs when the other stages have finished, and when you find yourself with the end in your grasp. It has taken you seemingly centuries to get to this point, and you can see Bandage Girl grinning away happily just one saw blade away. And then you jump… and smack into it, heading back to the start again. 

 

Key Quote: ‘AAARGH! Jesus Christ! Holy fucking bananas! AAAARGHARGHARGH!’ etc. 

 

This stage lasts a while. 

 

6. Hysteria – You laugh. You laugh and laugh, because you’ve been playing for so long. You said you’d stop, but you didn’t. This is very funny, for some reason. Then you laugh because Super Meat Boy seems to be laughing too. You can imagine him psyching himself up for each jump, only to explode meatily and head off with a chuckle again. You stop and laugh, and then laugh because Meat Boy is standing stock still with an arsenal of bloody death around him. 

 

Key Quote: ‘Look at him! Look at him. He’s just rocking out there, with the saw blade. He’s just rocking out – oh, he’s dead. He didn’t see that coming!”

 

7. Acceptance – You’re never going to do it. You’re going to keep trying, but you might as well be found here, years later, covered in dust and still failing at that jump. This is the hangover from the glorious drunkenness of Hysteria. Often you start talking about other things. 

 

Key Quote: ‘So the Great Khans, right? They’re like raiders, but not totally psycho. D’ya think you can, like, negotiate with them?’

 

8. Zen – The Buddhists meditate for years in order to attain Enlightenment, a sense of understanding and total well being with the universe. Similarly to Enlightenment, Zen is a very, very, very hard state to reach. When you get there (if, of course, you get there), you will be waltzing between saw blades and past missiles with an inhuman grace, skill, and ease, making each jump perfectly and staring at the screen with an expression of pure contempt. 

 

Key Quote: ‘Jump… jump… slide… pause… slide… jump…’

 

 

It’s very simple. 

 

If you buy this game, you will go through these stages. All of them, at several points. It won’t be easy, and at times, it won’t be fun. 

 

But for sheer, exhilarating enjoyment, I have to recommend it. You’ll never be quite the same again. 

 

And you’ll be swearing far, far more. 

 

* Super Meat Boy has a wonderful party trick of showing you, at the end of each level, a replay in which every single attempt you made is shown on the same screen. It is honestly a worthy reward. It's wonderful.