
Super Meat Boy 3D is a punishingly difficult platformer starring an animated cube of meat on a mission to rescue his bandage-made girlfriend from an evil, tuxedo-wearing fetus in a jar, this time rendered in three dimensions. Our gristly hero leaps from walls, vaults seas of buzz saws, and races through crumbling caves and pools of old trash, cheerfully sacrificing his own well-being over and over to save his damsel in distress.
The design channels the old-school brutality of classic retro titles and strips it down to pure, no-nonsense twitch-reflex platforming. Difficulty ramps from merely hard to soul-crushing as Meat Boy braves forests that are lush but also on fire, vast dumps piled with humanity's waste, and high-tech forges busily manufacturing the very traps destined to kill him again and again. Fair but merciless level design exists specifically to break you.
There is more here than a long string of stages. Epic boss fights punctuate the run, and heaps of unlockable secrets reward the persistent, including Dark World levels tough enough to leave you screaming in the rain at a bus stop. The whole thing rides on a soundtrack with attitude to match its chaos. An action-packed indie platformer, it delivers precision challenge for PC players who miss the days when games genuinely fought back.