Subscribe- Rating:
Super Meat Boy HANDHELD isn’t so much a game as it is a satire of games, so when I was first presented with the opportunity to review it, I thought about writing my review as a satire of game reviews. Yet this approach would run the risk of seeming genuine, as doubtlessly, some would fail to pick up on the underlying meta-game of sarcasm.
The internet makes for a poor barometer of sarcasm in such instances. I’d end up the butt of my own joke. So, instead, I thought I’d talk about the significance of Super Meat Boy, what it means, and what it says about the medium of video games as a whole.
Super Meat Boy Handheld was born out of a criticism lobbied against Apple at the GDC 2010 rant session, in which the game’s creator compared the App Store to a Tiger LCD handheld system. To make a short story shorter, SMBH was later created and released on the App Store to emphasize that criticism.
Yes, SMBH is a lousy game (though you could certainly do worse), but it’s lousy in order to make a point. While the legitimacy of its complaints are debatable, what’s remarkable is it has something to say in the first place.
Since opening last year, the iTunes App Store — the mobile storefront for iPhone and iPod Touch games and applications — has grown exponentially in size. The App Store boasted more than 10,000 available apps at the end of 2008. One year later, as of this writing, that number has risen to more than 112,000.
