Super Meat Boy: PS4 Review

Super Meat Boy: PS4 Review

Available on PS Plus this October
Platform: PS4

Oh my God, is this the hardest platformer ever to hit the console?

Quite possibly, and in terms of frustrations, it's up there with Manic Miner and Underwurlde way back when.

A Steam favourite from way back when, you play a cube of red meat, tasked with rescuing your beloved Bandage Girl from Dr Foetus.

Each level sees you reunite with your lovely, only to have the evil Foetus snatch her away from you and send you back to try again in another environment. Usually one with buzzsaws, and fiendish gravity traps. Jumping, timing jumps and simply hoping for the best occasionally may help - but chances are you're more than likely to be screaming your head off in frustration with Super Meat Boy, because it's so much about the timing.

Reminiscent of N++ and its gravity defying ways, Super Meat Boy is one of those games you start playing, only to lose hours constantly replaying moments because it should be so obvious. Most of the trickier levels see you bounding off walls to avoid saws in a sort of Rayman-esque way only to get caught by the timings of the saws or the fact you didn't jump high enough. Each death brings a touch of red to the environment with bloody entrails left on the side and teasing you with yet another failure.

And yet, the relentless pace, the sheer simplicity of the game and the fiendishly addictive way it plays out, means that you will go back time and time again - because it seems too easy to defeat. The reality is though, it is not. And yet, despite the responsiveness of the controls and the ease in which you leap and bound, you're only ever to blame for the failure.

That's the joy and the frustration of Super Meat Boy - with its almost Nintendo-esque graphics and its simplicity of play, it's more than a passing addiction. This cube of meat is one recipe for perfect gaming and perfectly compulsive disaster.

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