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#yearinreview Who were the best dressed, the most memorable and the most visually striking video game characters of 2010? I've made my picks for the best video game costume and character design from the past year, let's see if you agree. More »

"Bandage Get!!!!" is the name of this appropriately titled -- and very slick -- Super Meat Boy fan short by Joseph Manalaysay, in which the anthropomorphic cut of beef navigates the perils of a 3D-rendered city to (wait for it) get the bandage. It's great, but the more "realistic" Boy is creepy!

Team Meat's contest to find new box art for the Russian release of its beloved, nightmarishly difficult platformer Super Meat Boy has been fruitful, indeed. Check out the winning art after the jump -- then soak in all the other wonderful submissions over on Team Meat's site. We want posters!

#coverstory No, мать зовет is not "MEAT BOY" in Cyrillic. A famous piece of World War II propaganda was the inspiration for the winning box art submission for Super Meat Boy's lone retail release, in родина - Russia. Large size inside. More »

No, seriously -- it's a paper cube of meat dodging deadly paper traps. And it's a completely wonderful homage to Super Meat Boy.

If you've managed to resist downloading the impossibly cheap Super Meat Boy soundtrack, you'll be interested to know that now there's a much more physical and significantly more awesome version available. The 2 CD set includes all the music from the downloadable release and also includes menu and cutscene music, two new remixes and more. It also comes in the neato case seen above.

The 2 CD set can be had for $10 -- or more, if you're so inclined -- plus shipping. For an additional $5, you can also order a copy of the soundtrack signed by its composer Danny Baranowsky. See hi-res images of the packaging in the gallery below.

Brent Kennedy's piano arrangements are, to put it lightly, very impressive. His latest renditions of Super Meat Boy tunes are no different, urging us to loop "Betus Blues" while charging once more through level two's Light World. It's so much more harrowing when the music sounds classical!

Super Meat Boy's co-creators Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes don't want to make another platformer. "We've farmed this. It's done. There's no more coming out of us," McMillen said in a recent interview with Game Informer. In fact, the duo's next game could very well be dynamically generated, a brawler, a shooter, or something more casual, and could end up on a handheld -- but "not like iPhone or anything," Refenes notes. "Me and Tommy love video games. I don't think we discriminate on what genres we'd want to do," McMillen explains.

And it certainly won't be as difficult as SMB, or as difficult to make. "Kind of like eating the ginger between sushi entrees. Just kind of cleanse it, make a new little game, and then start on the next big one," he explains. Super Mint Boy, perhaps? Not likely, as McMillen definitively states, "After the level editor comes out, it's done. Cut it off. No more meat boy."

In the pages-long interview, Refenes and McMillen wax on a variety of topics, from undiscovered gaming references within SMB, to working with Microsoft and Nintendo, to the genesis of Meat Boy's death replays. Get a cup of hot coffee, put on that kickin' SMB soundtrack, and get reading.

Okay, not quite. But fans of Super Meat Boy in Russia now have the opportunity to design the cover art for the PC box-copy release in the territory (so team Meat doesn't have to). Published by Buka Entertainment, the Russian release will be the first box copy of the game available in the world, so it's ... sort of a big deal?

To enter the box art contest -- well, first you have to be a resident of Russia or any of the former Soviet Union countries, and then -- just put together a 709x709-pixel image using this set of SMB assets (.ZIP link), send it in to Buka before midnight on January 15, 2011, and calmly wait for the results to be announced a day or so later (more specific instructions can be found here). Not only will the winner become "like semi-popular," but he or she will also receive an Acer monitor!

A personal message from Team Meat's Edmund McMillen spells out the intentions behind the contest, which you can view after the break. If you don't watch it for the pitch, watch it for his totally sweet hat.

Super Meat Boy is so simple in concept that it's downright pretentious to read so much into it. But what else is a critic good for?

On the surface, SMB -- a repurposing of the initials of probably the most famous video game of all time -- is a quintessential "indie" work. Essentially the product of the Team Meat twosome of Edmund McMillen (the creator) and Tommy Refenes (the programmer), Super Meat Boy is equal parts professional perfectionism and total unprofessionalism. The game "oozes with the blood of artistic independence," as McMillen put it ... on his "Dev Blog for Gay Nerds."

What's arguably the most technically excellent 2D platformer ever designed can't be separated from its adolescent humor. Team Meat are folk heroes for the Twixter generation: enviably talented young artists, who use their powers in defiantly uncouth ways.

The marathon gaming team Wily Whompers was scheduled to race team Zeldathon this week, but when that showdown fell through, it decided to turn its marathon into a Viewer's Choice of sorts, asking Reddit readers to help choose which games to play for 72 hours straight. The group is also raising money for Child's Play as it streams the event -- so far it has only reached a few hundred dollars, but there's still time left to play ... and watch.

The team started with a run through Mega Man 10 and then the Reddit folks showed a cruel streak, sending the players through Super Meat Boy (we're told they beat all of the Light World levels and the warp zones), Super Ghouls N Ghosts and a few other unforgiving titles before the Whompers' current challenge as of this writing: Beating the forehead-slappingly difficult Demon's Souls. We can only wish them luck -- we're hard pressed to do anything for three days straight, much less play some of the hardest games around.

#teammeat Russia will be the first country to score a retail release for the PC version of super Meat Boy, and creator Edmund McMillen sends out this moving call for Russian-inspired cover art. Good thing he's okay with the Cold War. More »

Team Meat looking at retail release.

If Super Meat Boy were to launch on WiiWare today, it would have no leaderboards, no Dark World levels and no support for downloadable additions. Boss fights and cutscenes would have no musical accompaniment, and only six music tracks (including just one for retro-themed levels) would be present. In the words of designer Edmund McMillen, it would be "a piece of shit version of Super Meat Boy."

When McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes, who together form Team Meat, tested a version of their loopy platformer that could fit under the (previously disputed) 40MB file-size limit imposed by Nintendo's WiiWare service, they weren't satisfied with the compromises and decided to cancel it. "There is no way to avoid the fact that if we released a 40MB version of Super Meat Boy it would be a shit version of the game," McMillen told Joystiq. "It's a lose lose situation, but the fact of the matter is if we release a shitty game, we will have to live with that for the rest of our careers and have to cop to the fact that it is a shitty game."

While we already knew a level editor was on the way for the PC version of Super Meat Boy, news that it will also add an online portal for the custom levels is, um, news! Additionally, both the PC and Xbox Live Arcade versions will soon be updated with a new hub-world chapter, which will be home to new levels uploaded by Team Meat. All the new content is expected to be released mid-January, according to the developer.

The PC-only online portal will catalog all user-created maps (created with the level editor, of course) and allow players to rate them and sort them based on a variety of criteria, says Team Meat. As for the new hub-world chapter, dubbed "Super Meat World," it will unlock as a destination prior to the first chapter (The Forest) on the chapter select screen once the player has collected 20 bandages.

"Super Meat World" will behave a bit differently on each platform. On both XBLA and PC, this world will become the default destination for all new levels uploaded to the game by Team Meat (but not "Teh Internets" world, which will continue to reside in its own spot and even get some additional level love via this impending update) and will gain levels designed specifically for some of the hidden characters in the game. Also, Team Meat says that while a level editor won't be gracing XBLA, it will upload "all compatible user made level packs that we deem 'awesome'" to the XBLA's "Teh Internets" world.

On the PC, "Super Meat World" gets an additional exclusive feature: an "Enter the Unknown" area which will feature a dynamic playlist of random, highly-ranked, custom maps made by the community each time you play. Players will need only to choose a level of difficulty at the outset on PC, then they'll be thrust into multiple levels that meet both the rating prerequisite and toughness level chosen.

#wii The creators of PC and Xbox 360 hit Super Meat Boy have aborted the game's WiiWare release, saying they're unable to fit a quality version of the game under the size limit Nintendo imposes on titles for the download service. More »

The saga of the WiiWare version of Super Meat Boy has come to an abrupt, disappointing end, with Team Meat tweeting today that the project has been canceled altogether. The team is still considering retail, but adds that the possibility is "also looking grim." We've contacted Team Meat for further comment. Keep an eye here for updates as we get them.

Level editor, online portal, and new chapter coming next month.

#difficulty Science has not told us whether notoriously hard video game Super Meat Boy is tougher than notoriously hard N+. So we must rely on a second-best method. More »

Microsoft has launched its "Countdown to New Year's" promotion today on Xbox Live, which will see numerous pieces of Marketplace content discounted in the days leading up to the ball drop. The deals are highlighted by several XBLA games on sale now through December 31, including Super Meat Boy, Carcassonne, Comic Jumper, Castle Crashers and Risk Factions; all of which are 33-50 percent off.

Daily deals are also on offer, beginning with today's deal: Red Dead Redemption DLC. Both the "Liars & Cheats" and the "Legends & Killers" packs are available for 400 Microsoft Points ($5) each, half their usual price. Meanwhile, "Undead Nightmare" and the Undead Nightmare Collection -- which bundles together all three aforementioned add-ons -- are 25 percent off at 600 ($7.50) and 1200 points ($15), respectively. As for tomorrow, December 22, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light will be available for half-off at 600 points ($7.50).

Additionally, Microsoft has listed clues to the rest of this year's daily deals on the Xbox Live Dashboard. We've compiled the clues, along with our best guesses, after the break. Be sure to check it out before you start spending your holiday points!

Finally, buying discounted items, watching Netflix movies or playing Halo: Reach and Fable 3 multiplayer during this 11-day promotion will automatically enter players into a sweepstakes to win a massive prize package, featuring a 50-inch HDTV.

If you can't wait for the Super Meat Boy level editor which the game's creators plan to release within the next six months, there's another, slightly more esoteric option for customizing your super difficult platforming experience. The game's modding community has uncovered a "devmode" within the PC build of Super Meat Boy, giving the keys to the kingdom to anyone willing to learn how to use the (very user-unfriendly) tools with which Team Meat created the game's original batch of levels.

Team Meat was even was nice enough to post a few tutorial videos explaining how to access and use the tools. We're probably going to hold off for the proper level creator to get released, but hey -- if you guys want to go ahead and make a whole bunch of levels for us to enjoy, we're not going to stand in your way.

The folks at XBLA Fans have put together a fantastic Super Meat Boy bandage guide, complete with pictures and jumping guide lines. One should feel no shame in referencing it: the game stands as one of the most difficult (yet satisfying) experiences of the year.

#pc Super Meat Boy is getting a limited run of actual, physical boxed copies for the PC. To mark the occasion, artist Dave Rapoza handled the cover illustration, and made it appropriately epic. More »

We thought that nothing related to Super Meat Boy could possibly be more upsetting than that I Want to Be the Guy level, but there's no way we could have foreseen ... this. Graphic artist Dave Rapoza, who caught the eye of Team Meat with an equally disturbing piece of fan art earlier this year, has drawn up a new hyper-realistic design that will make its way onto the box of the Super Meat Boy PC special edition. Check out the full illustration after the jump.

We can't place our finger on what makes our initial reaction to the painting one of immeasurable horror; it really is an incredibly creative and beautifully drawn interpretation of the game's tiny, pixelated lead characters. Maybe that's what's so upsetting -- we never imagined that hidden within that blocky frame was a totally ripped physique.

#screengrab Super Meat Boy is a savagely difficult platformer, and those old-school bonafides gave artist TheInfamousTheft the inspiration for this rad Nintendo Power-style beat guide to The Guy's three levels, which unlock The Kid. Spoilers? Maybe. Big size on the jump. More »

#indie Gloating that he goaded People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals into making a flash-game free advertisement for indie hit Super Meat Boy, the game's co-creator followed up with an unlockable Super Tofu Boy character for the game's PC version. More »

Symbiote Studios is producing two different 8" vinyls of beefy hero Super Meat Boy. Both the "Normal Meat Boy" and the tenderized "Beat Up Meat Boy" are available now for pre-order, cost $40, have a limited run of 250 copies apiece and will make their way home to you next April.

Both editions of the vinyl have movable arms and come in a box designed by Team Meat. Why is it going to take until next April for the dolls to ship? Because every one of the "Beat Up Meat Boys" has to be abused by hand. Sad, we know. Still adorable.

#toys Do you prefer your meat pristine and untouched or vigorously beaten? Symbiote Studios has you covered either way with a pair of limited edition Super Meat Boy vinyl figures, just in time to preorder for the holidays. More »