The Games of Game Night 3

Our first Game Night with Giant Robot (and Attract Mode and The UGTL!) was a resounding success, in part thanks to two great video games. Sure the hard work of everyone at GR2, gr/eats, Friends of Meat Bun, Adam Robezzoli, and Eric Nakamura played a huge part in making Game Night 3 a blast, but we have to give it up for two highly addictive, crowd-pleasing games.

Super Meat Boy (Xbox Live Arcade)

Like N+, only less prone to drive players completely insane, Super Meat Boy is pure platforming perfection. Guide the bloody…err, ketchup-leaking Meat Boy through dozens (hundreds?) of levels filled with deadly saw blades, meat-seeking missiles and insta-kill mountains of salt in an effort to save his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, from the evil Dr. Fetus.

Super Meat Boy draws a hardcore crowd, the type that loves watching a cycle of grisly deaths, but roars with delight when someone completes its incredibly challenging levels. Here’s some extended Super Meat Boy gameplay video that better shows off the wall-jumping, bandage-getting action!

Super Meat Boy is out on Xbox Live Arcade on October 20, coming to PC, Mac and WiiWare in November.

The game that drew bigger crowds, however, was a good ten years old.

The Typing of the Dead (Sega Dreamcast)

If you’ve never had the pleasure of playing the most absurd edutational typing game ever, it’s essentially SEGA’s light gun shooter The House of the Dead 2 with typing controls slapped on. Combining intense typing action with the hilariously awful voice acting of THotD2 makes for a real crowd pleaser — mostly because, well, who doesn’t know how to control a keyboard?

While most of the phrases you’ll need to type include seemingly random strings — “Rental underwear,” “Woman diver,” “Enormous hair” — some typing challenges are more intense. You’ll need to answer questions by typing or re-type the deep inner thoughts of someone who worked in SEGA localization in the early 2000s. Everyone should own a copy of The Typing of the Dead. If only SEGA made it a little easier…

To see what you’re missing out on, watch this clip.