Super Meat Boy is a platforming success, being of the few XBLA games that stands tall with the retail giants.
The story is nothing you haven't heard before, but it's done in such a captivating way that it instantly grips you. Granted, you'll be stuck on one chapter for so long you'll forget a story even exists, but the cinematics are just so cool and badass that it's almost like a reward for sticking to it and not giving up. Basically Dr. Fetus has captured Bandage Girl, Meat Boy's companion. To get to her, he's gotta overcome an insane amount of obstacles and some pretty dopey looking but brutally challenging bosses. There's a lot of humour involved, and for innocent looking characters, there's a lot of innuendos and middle fingers. Everybody knows animations is so much better when it's badass.
The visuals, as stated before are superb. They're very shiny and taken care of wonderfully despite how technically little there is to them. The primary colour used is red, because of course our protagonist here is some sort of out of date meat. We all know why the developers chose this colour. Had it been a little human we're playing it would no doubt have recieved a more mature rating. The sound here is also brilliantly comic. Meat Boy does a marvelous splashing noise as he moves that could be interperated as anything. But the soundtrack is the highlight. It ranges from hard rock which blends in really well on the title menu with Meat Boy's beaten and bruised face, superb synthy electronic for the later levels based in the city, and an excellent track that is used for bonus levels that sounds like a machine gun going off in bursts.
There's suprisingly a lot of value on store also, with around 150 levels, then there's a suprise "dark world" of each level, an entire new campaign which adds to 300 levels. There's tons of plasters to collect too, which unlike most games that use it as filler, are so fun to do and make what seemed a challenging mission into a hair tearing, controller flinging, punch-yourself-in-the-leg mission. You also come across warp zones which puts twists on the standard levels, and completing them unlocks new characters, each with their own ability which varies from double jumping, hovering, sticking to walls etc.
There's little else to talk about on Super Meat Boy because it pretty much is a very straightfoward game. But it's done with so much style and substance that it's leagues beyond other recent platformers. It's a game that hardcore gamers would wet themselves other and compete to be the best on leaderboards, and accessible enough for casual gamers to grit their teeth to when realistically they want to smash their TV up (I know I did anyway). Buy this gem, and prepare to lock yourselves away for 3 weeks with what should be a 2 day playthrough.