Super Meat Boy Forever

Meat the parents

Have you accidentally jumped on your DualShock several times in a row, until nothing works except and 2? Then has Team Meat got the game for you! Meat Boy, now married to Bandage Girl (or maybe they’re living in a butcher’s house of sin), has to rescue little baby Nugget from Dr Fetus… by suffering through an endless runner where you do little more than tap and hold a single button. Honestly, they might as well have called it Flappy Meat.1

The truth is that, so far as endless runners with simplistic controls go, this is much better than a lot of the competition – though that’s not saying much. There are traditional levels, with defined beginnings and ends, split into themed worlds.2 Levels are stitched together from a huge pool of bits and bobs, though you’d never guess it. Each procedurally-generated level feels bespoke, although none of them approaches the quality of the first game.

Boy or Girl can dive and attack in mid-air, generally only change direction by running into or bouncing off obstacles, and slide along the ground to attack. These fundamentals are exploited and gradually built upon in some clever ways, approaching a traditional platforming experience. There are even boss fights, the mechanics used in interesting ways to make them feasible, though they’re still very annoying.

It’s a game that can feel unfair and frustrating; most of it would work better if you had full control of movement and momentum. SMB Forever is ultimately a victim of its own legacy – the first game demonstrated that a Meat

Boy game can, and should, be much better than this.

Luke Kemp