It seems like agile young gentlemen and their helpless love interests just can't catch a break, what with villains being so keen on kidnapping. In the platformer Meat Boy, it's up to a sentient pile of bloody, raw meat to rescue his Band-Aid girlfriend from... a suit and monocle wearing fetus in a jar. I suppose it's a magical fetus, as I can't quite figure out how it would go about carrying anything, much less devising nefarious traps.
The story makes little or no sense: perfect for an old-school platformer. Meat Boy hearkens back to simpler times, when games were designed to be cruel, and unforgiving. While the protagonist is a fairly tenacious fellow, he'll be obliterated by quite a few environmental hazards – buzz saws, salt pits, fire, the occasional heat seeking missile...
There are over 56 levels to slog through, but you don't have to beat every single one to make progress – handy, because most of these stages are absolutely brutal. I mean... missiles? Really? Where does a fetus in a jar even get missiles? Once you've beaten them all (or given up hope), fire up the level editor and crank out a few insurmountable death traps of your own.
Meat Boy is the dastardly handiwork of Edmund McMillen (responsible for Gish, and Aether, among others) and Johnathan McEntee. Head to Newgrounds to check the game out, or download the standalone version for Mac orPC right here.
Meat Boy [Newgrounds]
