The story begins with Joe, a movie nerd going to see a movie about his favorite Super Hero. During the movie, after his girlfriend tries to pull a few moves on him, the monster from the movie reaches out into the real world, grabs Joe's girlfriend and brings her into the movie world. Joe, obviously wanting to save his girlfriend, gets a little visit from his hero, Captain Blue, and is given the Viewtiful powers. He then proceeds to get himself into the movie world, hell bent on saving his girlfriend.

The graphics for this game are very innovative. As I said before, the character models are cell shaded; something that is not seen in many games. The backgrounds aren't anything special, but that's the whole point. They are supposed to seem like cut out, pasted on, pictures. Just the whole look of the game gives you a cool feeling inside because it's just so new and fresh; you wonder what else the game makers will come up with.

The UI is pretty well done. Every time a new move or ability is learned, a little practice screen comes up and you are able to learn the buttons to perform special moves.

The controls are very intuitive and easy to pick up. Since it has been a while since I have played this game, I'm kind of rusty on exactly what button does what. The R button causes time to speed up, L causes it to slow down, which makes Joes combos more powerful and allows you to dodge bullets. A and B are the punch and kick buttons, and the C analog stick allows you to do different tricks as well.

The sound and music throughout the game can be somewhat….cheesy. A lot of Joe's catch phrases are so…..again, cheesy. But what else would you expect from a kid like him.

You can become immersed in the game's story and innovative gameplay so much that you can just sit there for hours without realizing the time. Personally, the longest I played was 2 hours, but my friends have gone well over 4 hours, though most of the time was spent losing to the bosses.

I didn't find the game all that difficult, though I did have trouble with one of the bosses. Don't know what happened, I just couldn't beat him…but then again, there is no game out there that doesn't give me some sort of trouble that frustrates me beyond belief which can lead to broken objects….

I would have enjoyed some type of multiplayer…not sure how they could pull it off, but some type of multiplayer would have been neat. Unfortunately, this side-scroller is a strictly single-player affair.

The game was very fun, mainly because of its fresh new gameplay design and cool look. If you're looking for something just all around fun to play and something original, then Viewtiful Joe is definitely a game you should consider picking up.