Any good action superhero worth his tights could obliterate you by the time you’re done reading this sentence. Viewtiful Joe, however, could probably take you down before you even figure out how to say his name. Then he’d go eat a cheeseburger, and be back in time for the credits to roll on your sorry ass. The game is a perfect blend of arcade style beat-em-up and plot driven adventure. Quite simply, no super hero game has ever looked as good, handled as well, or has been just as downright ingenious in all the right ways as Capcom’s Viewtiful Joe is.

Breakdown

Joe is just your average..uh..joe, aside from all of the powers and responsibilities that come from having to save your girl from a bunch of movie-bad-guys that want to make the jump from the silver screen into the real world. The story is actually quite interesting, driven forward by cut scenes to open and close each episode of the game. Joe sits in a theatre with his frisky girlfriend, Sylvia, watching one of Captain Blue’s classic action movies. Suddenly the plot changes from what Joe remembers - Captain Blue being defeated at the hands of some strange new villain - when the mysterious bad guy turns his attention on Sylvia, and takes her away into the world of “Movieland.” Joe is knocked unconscious and when he wakes up he is similarly dragged off into the movies.

After encountering what’s left of Captain Blue, Joe learns the three basic moves: Slow-mo, Mach speed, and Zoom – the repertoire of every basic action hero in Movieland. Soon, Joe can chain a seemingly endless stream of dodges, counters, punches, kicks and spins, and perform all other manner of ass-kicking moves on enemies. Slowing down time makes Joe’s attacks twice as powerful while speeding it up allows Joe to grind through a line of enemies in mere seconds. And zooming in on the action is of course the best angle to view the most spectacular moves of all. Those may be the three basic techniques of the game, but they are certainly not the only moves in Joe can learn. Performing seamless combo-streams in Slow-mo, Mach speed, or Zoom will earn Joe V-points, which can be used to expand his arsenal of moves, upgrade techniques, and even buy health. After every few scenes or at the end of every episode, Joe can power up by purchasing new moves and upgrades with his accumulated V-points.

Using the three techniques is vital to more than just Joe’s combat prowess. He will need to utilize them to solve a large number of puzzles throughout all the levels in the game. For instance, in order to charge enough electric current through a severed wire, Joe slows down time at the exact moment the charge hits, sustaining the current long enough to power up the wire. At other times, Joe will need to speed up and punch an unlit bomb so fast that both he and the wick of the bomb catch fire. These additions of puzzle elements go a long way to bring innovation to the action genre.

While combat is essential to every action game, and Viewtiful Joe has some of the most exciting and fun combat scenes ever seen in a video game, there are several other key factors that make this a superior action title. For starters, considering the sheer number of complex moves and combos Joe can pull off, the controls are very easy to master. Capcom also went beyond the call of duty in the graphics department. Viewtiful Joe should be the standard by which all other cel-shaded graphics are judged. The environments are heavily detailed, and lose none of their quality even when zoomed in.

As far as the sounds in the game are concerned, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to think that Capcom hired its own Hollywood Foly-Artist studio – the breaking-celery-with-a-broomstick-punch-impact noises are out in full force, baby! The overall mood of the game is set perfectly by the soundtrack: a mixture of hard rock and techno tracks.

Unfortunately there are a few gripes. The addition of all the beautiful ambient sounds and music can make it extremely hard to understand what the characters are saying during the cut scenes. Without even having the option of volume control, this problem can take away a great deal of the purpose in the game. Also, the save-game design is very old-school, meaning that saving after every scene is impossible. As such, dying at the end of an episode will mean trekking all the way back to the beginning to try it again. The lack of a constant-saving option will definitely frustrate some gamers. Personally, I think that the save-game feature adds to the difficulty of the game. And dying isn’t all that bad, since V-points cannot be lost, meaning that Joe can always power up his moves before giving it a second go.

This is definitely a pick-up-and-play-anytime type of game. Even after completing the game on both of the initial difficulty settings, there will be plenty of new unlocked modes, characters, and other features to keep gamers coming back for more. The action is always fast paced and exciting in this game. Viewtiful Joe might just make wearing pink tights a cool thing for everyday guys once again. Finally, I can say, a game that does my namesake proud!

Posted: October 11, 2003