Super Meat Boy

Review

It doesn’t look like much when starting out: A flat bouncing head figure and some simple platforming action. But after some time with Super Meat Boy, I am convinced that it’s one of the best platform games in recent years. Even though it’s extremely unforgiving.

The Super Meat Boys protagonist is a red square that seems to be made of pressed mystery meat. And the “Super” in the name is a bit misleading, considering that this boy is minced so easily whenever he touches the saw blades, monsters and countless other traps that Team Meat sprinkled all over the game’s 110 levels. As for the plot, it’s simple enough. the ugly Dr. Fetus has abducted Meat Boy’s sweetheart Bandage Girl. That’s about it, and when you start the game you are thrown directly into the platform formation.

Meat Boy is thankfully pretty good at jumping and even better at staying in the air using repeated wall jumps. By holding the trigger button or riding air streams, he can also reach unprecedented heights. These are important factors that have to come in play in order to reach Bandage Girl at the end of each course. At that point, the princess is abducted again, Super Mario style and you will be thrown into the next challenge. You can’t complain about the pace and lack of unnecessary fuss.

The first world is no match for a fairly experienced platform gamer, but already in the second, Meat Boy starts dying off at an alarming pace. One wrong step means minced meat and you’ll have to start from the beginning. It sounds as frustrating as it is, but in a sort of enjoyable way. If you remember the hopelessly difficult but fun Mega Man games you’ll know what I’m talking about.

There’s no end to the self satisfaction once you make that impossible move across a huge chasm, then manage to land on a minimal platform, rush off again between the traps to land straight on Bandage Girl, without realizing what happened. Some screaming and frustration is inevitable, making Super Meat Boy an emotional storm of a gaming experience. When you pass a level, you can watch all your failed attempts as Meat Boy swarms across the screen. Great fun.

A lot of details will keep you busy. Other than regular platform levels, you’ll occasionally have to run from a huge monster that crushes you if you’re not quick enough. Disappearing platforms and cages that must be opened with keys also appear sometimes. You can save replays of your best stunts and also track leaderboards to see other players’ records. For the collector there are also patches to collect on each track, which unlocks rewards of various kinds. There are more sophisticated games than this platformer to play on Linux, but this one is fun and affordable enough to make it worth your while.

Gameplay

Linux System Requirements

The game is available on Steam, and if you can run the client you can run the game.

You need only a 1.4 GHz or faster CPU, 1 GB of RAM, 300 MB of hard drive space and a GPU that supports Pixel Shader 3.0 & Vertex Shader 3.0.