10 Great Video Games That Are Ugly On Purpose
1. Super Meat Boy
Edmund McMillen's Super Meat Boy is one of the most important and influential platformers of the last 15 years, no matter that its dominant aesthetic is absolutely revolting.
At first glance you could be forgiven for assuming that the game was just one of the thousands of low-rent Flash games released in the early 2000s, so hideous is its overall style.
For the bulk of the game, the art design is defined by drab, colourless industrial environments, seemingly designed to further demoralise players through this oppressively challenging, yet compulsively addictive, piece of work.
It's a testament to the fluidity of the platforming itself that Super Meat Boy is still such a blast to play, no matter how much of an eyesore its environments tend to be.
Ironically the long-awaited sequel, Super Meat Boy Forever, was widely criticised by fans for its slicker, more polished, and more colourful aesthetic, which many felt ran counter to the first game's grimy ethos.