Old Grandpa Decade here, to tell you about the delights of old-school platforming and twitch gaming. What do you mean NOT INTERESTED? Gah, all young ‘uns these days seem to want in their games are flashy cars and rocket launchers mixed with lavish cut scenes. You all think I am some sort of senile, fruit-sucking loon to indulge and reminisce in such primitive two dimensional sprite-based fare, but I grew up in those pioneering times. In fact let’s go really far back to the great days of the C64 and Sinclair Spectrum. Oh yes indeed, I recall Jeff Mintcake and his Lada’s, Old Mother Hubbard’s great SID soundtracks and Andrew Babbling Brook being Paranoid….

Actually, forget about that old git and listen up. Putting old-school style gameplay on swanky new consoles is often stupid. I don’t care what anyone says, Street Fighter versus Comic Heroes version 157 and all its samey variations are in my opinion lame and lazy pieces of software these days, and to be honest, old arcade classics are best played via a cabinet with those chunky buttons and a lollipop joystick. Why can’t there be developers who use their loaves and the power and technology available on the latest consoles to not only ‘sex up’ antique 2D play but also create an original and fresh experiences that go beyond what games of yesteryear could offer?

At the start it seems that the game will be a simple platforming beat ‘em up that will more than likely pall pretty quickly, but it soon becomes clear that there is a virtual treasure chest of subtleties to enjoy. Joe can jump, punch and kick, and, if you are quick enough, he can avoid getting hit himself, but this is all mediocre stuff compared to his VFX powers which are actually the absolute crux of the game. By holding down the shoulder buttons you can turn Joe into a true superhero capable of incredible manoeuvres such as;

Viewtiful Bullet Time. This enables Joe to slow everything down to a crawl so that he can structure his attacks beautifully and avoid his enemies’ response with acrobatic ease. I never tired of this aspect and it’s with this ability that you can enjoy Joe’s animations and moves to their fullest with extra knuckle crunching power.

Viewtiful Hyperspeed. The exact opposite of the above, with this Joe can go hyper-ballistic and lash out with a flurry of moves to overwhelm opponents, so much so that the friction he causes can actually ignite himself and other objects!

Viewtiful Zoom. This does exactly what it says, scaling in on the background and zooming in close on the action around Joe so that you can witness every detail close at hand as well as opening up some super enhanced “Matrix-style” combat moves such as cartwheel style kicks and spiralling charges. It’s cool stuff kids.