[NO FUNKY KONG!]

DKCR would have been so good were in not for the shit controls.  Donkey Kong Country 2 is my favorite game of all time, so I obviously picked up DKCR at store opening.  While I still thoroughly enjoyed the experience, they made some very dumb decisions (Waggle, lack of animal buddies, no K. Rool, too many remixes not enough new tracks, no underwater levels, NO FUNKY KONG!etc.)  I hope Retro gets a 2nd chance so they can fix all the things they fucked up.

I agree w/ the waggle-to-roll being incredibly stupid, although I'd bet that was a push from Nintendo as opposed to Retro's own design demand...  The new tracks were awesome though (Tidal Terror etc) although they did sound distinctly "Metroid", Kenji seems to be best at that kind of ambient music.  They need David Wise back for DKCR2 imo.

But to be fair and treat both games w/ an equal brutality.  Super Meat Boy was/is incredibly glitchy and unoptimized (especially for PC), so much so that it's embarrassingly bad how crappy the game can run on a Core2Duo/3GBRAM/4870 laptop...  Literally from 1 death to another the game will go from 60+ fps to about 13fps, it's unforgivable.  And I'm not even mentioning the control (meat boy sliding up walls WAY too fast and far) and level glitching, crashes and the absurd amount of levels made unplayable if the game isn't running 100%.  And with the time between it's release last October and now, these issues should not exist anymore period.

People are still having trouble with Meat Boy?

As for DKCR, there shouldn't have been any remixes at all (I'd let a couple for bonus barrels slide).  How many reused songs were there in the first 3 games?  That's right, none (again, not including the heavily remixed bonus barrel music).  

Rather than rehashing entire songs they would instead opt to throw tiny little nods into other tracks that only the most dedicated fans would pick up.  For example Rock Face Rumble (I think that's the tracks name.  I'm pretty iffy on DKC3) has a bit that matches up with Mining Melancholy, Primal Rave has a bit of Aquatic Ambiance hidden in it.

It may have had a pretty good soundtrack, but compared to the original 2 (and even the 3rd in many regards) the sound direction is vomit worthy.

(And what was with only taking tracks from the first game?  Seriously lame.  If you're going to steal 95% of your soundtrack from earlier games at least use all the prequels.)

Yeah, supposedly a lot of people are still having problems...  Leaderboards on PC are just a guaranteed crash for a lot of people.

But I'll agree that DKCR should have used less derivation and more "new tracks".  And Stickerbush Symphony not being in just sucks.  But the game was made to pay homage to DKC1 if you've read Reto's statements about the game.  But in pure level design, art, controls (non-waggle) and creativity Returns destroys the originals hands down.  The use of momentum and DK's weight, as well as the balance of the Jetpack was perfect in Returns as was the level design which supported it.  If you've played w/ the classic controller and done a few Time Attacks you'll probably agree.  And Meat Boy is the only 2D platformer this gen that equals it in those regards.  

Edit:  Btw, Kirby's Epic Yarn OST pwns both DKCR and Meat Boy's OST combined!

[NO FUNKY KONG!]

DKCR would have been so good were in not for the shit controls.  Donkey Kong Country 2 is my favorite game of all time, so I obviously picked up DKCR at store opening.  While I still thoroughly enjoyed the experience, they made some very dumb decisions (Waggle, lack of animal buddies, no K. Rool, too many remixes not enough new tracks, no underwater levels, NO FUNKY KONG!etc.)  I hope Retro gets a 2nd chance so they can fix all the things they fucked up.

I agree w/ the waggle-to-roll being incredibly stupid, although I'd bet that was a push from Nintendo as opposed to Retro's own design demand...  The new tracks were awesome though (Tidal Terror etc) although they did sound distinctly "Metroid", Kenji seems to be best at that kind of ambient music.  They need David Wise back for DKCR2 imo.

But to be fair and treat both games w/ an equal brutality.  Super Meat Boy was/is incredibly glitchy and unoptimized (especially for PC), so much so that it's embarrassingly bad how crappy the game can run on a Core2Duo/3GBRAM/4870 laptop...  Literally from 1 death to another the game will go from 60+ fps to about 13fps, it's unforgivable.  And I'm not even mentioning the control (meat boy sliding up walls WAY too fast and far) and level glitching, crashes and the absurd amount of levels made unplayable if the game isn't running 100%.  And with the time between it's release last October and now, these issues should not exist anymore period.

COD4 was the last great COD game...which ironically set the stage for it to be milked and played out.  Funny how "success" works huh?

But SMB is obviously better than COD in nearly every way except popularity and budget.  I personally consider Super Meat Boy along w/ DKCR, to be the best 2D platformers this gen so far. 

I'd buy a $50 Wii retail in a heartbeat, due to already having it on Steam/XBLA I wouldn't re-buy those at retail.  But a Wii version, or a 3DS version I'd surely buy for top dollar $50 at retail.

SMB is worth every cent to me!

Well, the music in #2 was the best in Mega Man history imo.

Instead of just new characters, how about some old school Nintendo level design influences...with/or epic OST remixes.

Imagine a Yoshi's Island inspired Meat Boy level to a faster remix of this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fb8K6VJ5uQ

Metroid level, long key/switch-based Metroidvania w/ checkpoints: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6SIIgtcTgE&feature=related

DKC2 level, must be truly epic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pvhv0yquhc

Or the Airship theme/levels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rix0RD0oqWI

And who could forget about a Kirby-inspired level: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSR3GPQccbA

Imagine a whole chapter like that, where each level is a badass homage of some kind!

-"You Went Full Retard Man"  Spend 3 hours in the Cotton Alley Dark World after losing 1000 lives.
-"You Could Fuck Up A Wet Dream"  Die more than 300 times in the Forest.
-"Like a Kiebler Elf Who Lost All His Cookies"  Abruptly quit out of 20 levels or more.

It's achievements like these that make getting achievements not fun.

- Grind achievements are not fun (i.e. do something 50 times)
- Easy achievements are not fun (i.e. beat the first level)
- Go-out-of-your-way-to-do-something-that-isn't-difficult achievements are not fun (i.e. die 300 times in the forest)

Super Meat Boy is one of the only games in existence that got achievements right. Let's not ruin it by adding more that suck just for the sake of adding more.

Some of the other suggestions aren't bad, but aren't necessary either. I say keep them the way they are.

I'm not a big fan of achievements, but I'd say what I listed is just as credible as a genuinely hard achievement.  There doesn't need to be achievement discrimination.  Personally, I'd bring a smile to my face to see an achievement pop up insulting me for dying too much, or slap me in the face for rage quitting.  It's rarely been done before.

But fair enough, I also say keep the achievements as is.

I don't think any achievement should be related to, you know, not achieving anything.

I'd be funny though, I don't really care about achievements one way or another.  But I'd say a secret achievement for dying 300 times in the Forest is an "achievement"...is it even possible without trying?

I think it would be neat if they made achievments for bosses. Just stuff like:

1. Home Run! :Defeat Lil' Slugger without stopping once.
2. Moping up : Defeat C.H.A.D without letting more that 60 tiles get covered in meat juice/blood
3. The Tortise and the Hare : Get to the end of the race with Brownie, but without him on the screen when you finish.
4. Left Footed : Defeat Little Horn without setting foot on the right side of the battlefield
5. Long Goodbyes : Defeat each Larry with a 30 second delay between kills.
6. Home Free : Escape the Floating Island in less than 120 seconds.

This, but I would add:
Casual Stroll: Defeat Lil' Slugger without ever running

Haha, I actually did beat Lil' Slugger without running once.  But I like all these.  Couple more:

-"Come Play With Me"  Keep a demon in the air for 30 seconds.
-"Sexy Party"  Survive a level while having 3 demons in the air chasing you at once.
-"You Went Full Retard Man"  Spend 3 hours in the Cotton Alley Dark World after losing 1000 lives.
-"You Could Fuck Up A Wet Dream"  Die more than 300 times in the Forest.
-"Like a Kiebler Elf Who Lost All His Cookies"  Abruptly quit out of 20 levels or more.

I'd forgotten about dual layer. I use a USB loader for my Wii so I don't have to bother with my discs. I remember now that the the Prime trilogy took ages to upload. On the other hand, New Super Mario Bros Wii only took up 0.34 GB of memory.  

edit: and i like your idea about including a .wad with the steam version. My idea to Edmund on twitter was much more sinister. I proposed he just anonymously "leak" the .wad online and just let that be the end of it. I'm perfectly fine getting SMB through legit channels though. It just sucks having to wait while everyone else is having fun.

Yeah, I'm really surprised quite often how so many Wii games scrub down to 3GB or less, even DKCR wasn't as big as I thought it would be.  Not that most games would need 4+GB but it's still amazing most Wii dev's don't try to pack more content in.

But just going by the filesize for Meat Boy on XBL which I think is 130-190MB, and the Steam version which is now 258MB I think...Meat Boy will probably be less than 800MB on Wii or less (if retail).  And if Nintendo can get away w/ releasing 25th Anniversary SMB which scrubs down to less than 15MB...Team Meat should be able to add a few extras and call it a day.

I believe a Wii disc is the same as 360, allowing for about 4GB of data.

The Wii (and 360) actually support DVD-DL which is about 7.49GB respectively.  Although very few Wii games have ever used the full dual-layer support.  It's only been used I believe in MP Trilogy, SSBB, Raving Rabids compilation, Other M and a few others.  To be honest I'm staggered more dev's haven't utilized the full bandwidth of Wii disc space more often.  I'll even be surprised if The Last Story or the upcoming Zelda uses a DL...

Super Bacon Girl

i'd hit that

Fuck that, I'd gobble that shit up...bacon is amazing
 

On topic, anything Team Meat does next  I'm game.  Although I am sort of holding out hope for an epic Shmup!

Are they still going to be known as "Team Meat" after they've moved on to the next project?

In terms of the WiiWare filesize restrictions, it is Nintendo's fault fundamentally.  It's a policy situation at it's core, not a hardware situation.  There could be a mandatory SD Card install for Meat Boy w/ a SD check through the Shop Channel to be sure nobody bricks...problem solved.  There's nothing wrong w/ a precedent like that if it helps developers AND end users. 

From a marketing/demand standpoint the Wii version makes more sense than a PS3 version for multiple reasons.  There's a lot of people who want Meat Boy on Wii, expected it on Wii, and would buy it at retail or WiiWare (SD Mandatory).  The marketing is better off since it already has hype and rave reviews, people won't see it as much of a risk.  And not to mention the Wii version is already coded and finished (to my knowledge), or at least somewhat close to finalized.  So there's no reason why it could not happen on all levels, and it would be profitable.  The only slight against it would be that it'd be a non-HD version...

A little off topic, and bit far-fetched but here's something I'd like to see.  Let's say that all users who bought Super Meat Boy on Steam were offered a download link for the WiiWare wad for Super Meat Boy on Wii...or given a small $1-$5 fee, or based it on the Golden God achievement.  So if you're a homebrew Wii user, and already paid for Super Meat Boy on Steam you were offered the Wii version for free or nearly free, or based on some cool investment into the game.  Easy instructions could be included to install to an SD Card through a "Super Meat Boy wad manager" (so as not to associate w/ other elicit managers)...and then fans were both given what they asked for and supported by developers at the same time.  It's a pretty novel idea to bypass the WiiWare restriction, while at the same time rewarding paying customers.  And it supports the homebrew scene, which would be quite revolutionary for a successful dev to embrace for fans in order to work around red tape.

Just my thoughts...    

Super Ghouls n' Ghosts  <- One of my proudest accomplishments!

Battletoads

Mega Man 9/10

SMB: The Lost Levels

For me it's Steam all the way!  1080p/Saturn USB controller (2004 model)/better achievements/level editor/etc.