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Viewtiful Joe 2 Review - Gamecube

Anyone who tells you that mindless violence in videogames is boring is right. Luckily, the crazy stunts of the Viewtiful Joe crew are anything but mindless, thanks to the always-damn-cool VFX powers. Ever wished you could do fancy wire work and have your own slo-mo action sequence in a movie? VJ2 is probably the best chance you'll get, and you don't even end up with a sore crotch from an awkward harness.

VJ2 is damn fun. That pretty much sums up the entire game, really. It's several chapters full of endlessly interesting ways to pretty much decimate entire robot armies using awesome super powers. You'll use your amazing skills of Slow, Zoom and either Mach Speed or Replay (for Joe and Sylvia respectively) to fashion extreme moves that not only look great, but also solve puzzles and allow you to progress.

The L button activates Slow, while B (or the C-stick) toggles Zoom. R is for Mach Speed/Record. Slow is the one to use for power – everything is amplified in strength (think Neo's super cheek-deforming punch in the final brawl of Matrix Revolutions). If you dodge an enemies attack by watching for the signals and then pressing up or down on the control stick accordingly, you'll get them dizzy. Hit Slow, and you'll enter a mode of pure carnage, with each enemy lit up in a crosshair. Keep holding slow and demolishing robots, and the combos will rack up – scoring you stacks of currency (Viewtifuls). Can you say SHWEET?

Zoom in brings the camera right up to Joe, which startles some enemies and amplifies power even further. All your punches and kicks (X and Y) turn into something better, and while your field of view is limited, you deal serious pain to the baddies. Even jumps become lethal. Better yet, once you have one VFX power going, you don't lose energy faster. Your VFX goo recharges as soon as you let go of the triggers, so sometimes it's better to cut your combo off short rather than turn into regular Joe (who can't double jump and is considerably weaker).

Joe picks up the Mach Speed power, which lets you run really fast. If you start pummelling an enemy in Mach Speed, pretty soon you'll catch on fire from the awesomeness of your attack. Little Joe figures also zoom off from you, grabbing stuff hidden in the background, like health. Sylvia, meanwhile gets the Replay VFX. When you pull down on R, a big 'REC.' symbol flashes on the screen. If you perform an attack, and then release the trigger, the attack will be triplicated, or repeated two more times. This helps with bosses, and is also cleverly incorporated into puzzles. After you've Replayed, Sylvia becomes electrically charged. Both the fire and electrical statuses are used in the level progression puzzles, and can be swapped to the other player when you tag team by pressing Z.

That's right, Joe and Sylvia work together this ... (continued next page)