Super Meat Boy has Headcrabs and Goo, plus other important SMB info

Just because Super Meat Boy came out on XBLA and was balls-to-the-wall awesome doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything new going on in the world of red meat. The PC version is less than two weeks away, and news keeps flying out about the game, including new, PC-exclusive characters. The Meat Boy creators just announced on their blog probably the biggest star to join the game yet: the Headcrab from Half-Life.

What started as a joke between Team Meat and Steam owners Valve became all too real, as Valve was totally into sharing the it’s brain-humping aliens, which will have a special horizontal jumping ability that’s indicative of its species. It’s a Steam exclusive, but for those buying the title for PC outside of Steampowered.com, they’ll get the nearly as cool Goo from World of Goo, which apparently won’t be in the Steam version. These two titans of gaming join the group of unlockables that also includes the previously reveal Mr. Minecraft. And no, these new characters aren’t coming to the 360 release.

As long as we have your Meat Boy-related attention, here are a few other things to note. Firstly, this week is the last week of SMB’s XBLA launch sale. Starting 11/21 it goes from 800 points ($10) to 1200 ($15), so for those intending to get it on 360, now is the time.

If you were waiting for SMB to come to Wii or PS3, get ready to wait some more, and in one case wait forever. The Wii version (the first planned release for SMB) has hit a few snags and delays thanks mostly to Nintendo’s pretty limiting size restrictions on WiiWare games. Team Meat is trying its best to find a way around the situation without having to resort to episodic content, which it feels is a terrible fit for its game. Suffice it to say SMB Wii’s future is cloudy.

For PS3 owners that future is nonexistent, as Team Meat has spelled out in no uncertain terms that the game will never be on Sony’s system. Why? To quote the devs:

“We can’t EVER do a ps3 version of super meat boy because when we were going into negotiations with publishers Sony was the only one who didn't express much interest in the game. We assumed this meant that they didn't want the game and decided to sign with Nintendo and Microsoft. Our contracts excluded any release on Ps3.

We would have loved to do a ps3 version, but it’s not at all possible what so ever now. So please stop asking about it.”

Above: Ya snooze, ya lose Sony

There you have it. Don’t get mad at the Team Meat guys, get mad at Sony for not seeing how cool Meat Boy was a long time ago, or shake your fist at Microsoft and Nintendo for putting that exclusivity in their contracts. On the plus side, your computer can probably handle the PC version that comes out in two weeks.

Nov 17,2010

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