Beeftacular Review

You know the other difficult platforming game where you control a sentient piece of meat? Well, this game isn’t quite as much like that as you might expect it to be.

Beeftacular, from developer Retrific, is a game where you control a square piece of beef as it moves through short, hard 2D stages. It sounds familiar, I know. But while the game does take inspiration from Super Meat Boy, it’s bigger influence seems to be 10 Second Ninja, some of the best parts of both games are on show here.

The goal of the game is to destroy rotten cubes of meat in the shortest amount of time possible. The chunk of beef you control has a melee slice attack and three harpoons to accomplish this task. There is a limited amount of time to beat a level, meaning you have to quickly traverse levels filled with precarious obstacles such as spikes. The farther you get, the more obstacles appear, and eventually you’re dealing with lasers and teleporters and more, on top of the aforementioned spikes. It’s a very simple concept, easy to grasp. There’s also a speedrun mode for those who have the skill. There’s a nice level editor that's simple to use, and there is plenty on offer from the community for you once you’ve finished the around 100 stages in the main game.

Levels can be restarted at the press of a button, pretty much a necessary feature in a game like this. There are three different difficulties offered; Noob, Beginner, and Experienced. The middle difficulty is a bit on the easy side for most of the game, so if you want a real challenge, play on Experienced.

If you’re playing with a mouse and keyboard, though, you’ll probably get a big enough challenge without playing on the hardest difficulty. It’s not a fault on the part of Retrific, it’s only that keyboard controls have never been great or platformers, and that hasn't changed here. Beeftacular is best played with a controller.

The story of our cube of beef might as well be nonexistent. In the first level, he says he must destroy rotten meat. Why? Well, according to Beefboy, that’s a ‘story for another time.’ I get that story isn’t the big draw for games like this, but come on, the developers could have put in the most miniscule amount of effort into it. Even Super Meat Boy had a plot to tie the game together.

A big positive for the game is how well it encouraged me to try and beat records set by other players. Upon completing a stage, a screen pops up showing various statistics such as the world record, or the best time of a friend. It adds a nice competitive aspect to the game that I don’t have to go rooting around in leaderboards to find, and it drove me to retry levels to try and beat friends’ scores.

It’s too bad that it’s so easy to look at this game and immediately think of it’s two big influences, because on it’s own, it’s a fun game. But Super Meat Boy and 10 Second Ninja are simply better games than this, and when Beeftacular evokes those two so much, it’s a problem.

There isn’t much here to look at. The only visual aspect of the game I liked is the red spatters that are left behind by your chunk of beef. Everything else about how the game looks is very plain and uninteresting. The sound doesn’t do much either, beyond its sometimes-catchy music. There are skins you can find throughout the game, and right from the start of the game you have access to the ‘paint’ skin, changing enemies into paint cans and making the whole experience a little more friendly and a little less violent-looking.