"He's Made of Meat"

In recognition of the fragile state of the economy, I present to you a game that is, for the most part, free. Meat Boy is the latest indie game release attached to Edmund McMillen, whose previous works include the games Gish, which allowed players to control a living blob, and Aether, a story about a young boy, an octopus-thing and their escape from reality. Meat Boy is about a boy made of meat, so they're still playing it safe. The story of Meat Boy is one as old as time: Meat Boy's girlfriend Band-Aid Girl is kidnapped by Dr. Fetus, so Meat Boy must venture forth to rescue her. The presentation is a strange hybrid of old-school graphics that falls somewhere between Atari 2600 and the original Nintendo Entertainment System, but lends a strange sort of charm considering that your character is made of still-bloody, semi-processed meat. As senior features editor of gaming Web site 1up.com Scott Sharkey put it, "This time they've crafted a game that's a little cute, a little gross and hard as all hell." At its meaty heart, the game is a platformer, meaning you'll be jumping from one area to the next while avoiding assorted traps (meat grinders, fire, salt, etc.) for most of the adventure. The controls are unique in that you can use either the arrow keys and the space bar on your keyboard to move and jump about or an Xbox 360 controller. Like another recent "neo-retro" game, Megaman 9, the difficulty level is not for the weak of spirit or faint of heart. There are stages in the game that may cause some players to either physically harm themselves or their computers. But, thankfully, you can skip two out of every five stages. (So you can go back and conquer stages later if you want, after your tears of despair have dried.) Meat Boy is free and available to play via a number of in-browser Flash-based game sites such as newgrounds.com and kongregate.com. Or, if you prefer, the game can be downloaded for play on the PC (sorry, Mac owners) from most hosting sites.

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