My review for Viewtiful Joe
(It's lunchtime at work, it's hotter than hell in this office, and I'm bored and already counting the hours until it's time to go home. So I'm going to knock this thing out now.)
As requested by Mord, here is a review for Viewtiful Joe, which I got from him back in February.
Now I don't claim to be a "professional reviewer" in any sense of the phrase. I'll be honest: as for right now, I've only cleared the second "episode" or "chapter" or whatever you want to call it. The second level, in other words. The one where you fight Hulk Davidson at the end.
I liked the game well enough, for what I've played of it, but I obviously didn't like it enough to actually finish it in the face of all the other games I have piling up waiting to be played. I may go back and finish it some day, or maybe not. If I'd played it back when it first came out in 2003, I'd have probably cared more about it.
Specifics.
In the game, you play as Joe, a dude who has been sucked into a super-hero movie that he was watching with his girlfriend Silvia, after she was also kidnapped into the movie by the big bad. Joe is given a henshin morpher thing by Captain Blue, the previous hero of the movie who had just been defeated by the big bad prior to the game's start. This allows him to morph into a super-hero similar to Captain Blue.
The game is a fairly traditional side-scrolling beat-em up game in most senses. However, the special powers that Joe gets makes things more interesting.
First is the time-slow-down power. This allows you to, well, slow down time. Not only does this make it easier to kill enemies, and reflect bullets that you otherwise couldn't even see, and such, it also sets up a multiplier that allows you to collect more V-points as you kill multiple enemies while it is active. These are used to buy and upgrade other powers later, when you get to a save point. It also allows you to temporarily deactivate flying platforms, so that they'll drop down to your level and let you climb aboard.
Second is the time-speed-up power. Again, the functionality is fairly obvious. It lets you move faster than normal. Good for fleeing from rolling rocks that are about to smash you, or to get through a timed door that is about to close.
Lastly is the zoom-in power. Didn't get a whole lot of use out of this one, aside from the required uses of it, such as hitting two switches to either side at the same time, or breaking through ceilings and floors.
As I said, I only made it to the beginning of the third stage. This is because I made it to the second stage boss once, got beaten by him a few times, stopped playing it, and then when I went back to the game later, it forced me to practically replay most of the second stage again before I could get to him again. It was annoying. I guess I am more of a modern gamer nowadays than I'd like to admit. Oh well. Finally beat him and got to the third stage, which actually turned out to be a side-scrolling flying shooter stage rather than the side-scrolling beat-em-up stages that came before. I didn't play much of it before I stopped though, and just haven't gone back to the game since. As I said, I have too many other games to really want to play this anymore at the moment. ^^;
So, overall, I'd say that Viewtiful Joe is a pretty cool game if you like that sort of thing, but it's just not one that really grabbed my interest enough to keep me playing it. I guess I'm just not as interested in platformers in general as I used to be. I haven't even played all that much of New Super Mario Bros Wii or Super Mario Galaxy 2 as of yet (and this is coming from a guy who got all 120 stars in the first SMG, in order to unlock the Great Green God, who I ended up not even playing as for more than a level or two). I'm roughly as far into each of those as I was into Viewtiful Joe, i.e. around the second world or so.
In the end, I'd give Viewtiful Joe a score of green stars out of a maximum of chocolate monkey.
As requested by Mord, here is a review for Viewtiful Joe, which I got from him back in February.
Now I don't claim to be a "professional reviewer" in any sense of the phrase. I'll be honest: as for right now, I've only cleared the second "episode" or "chapter" or whatever you want to call it. The second level, in other words. The one where you fight Hulk Davidson at the end.
I liked the game well enough, for what I've played of it, but I obviously didn't like it enough to actually finish it in the face of all the other games I have piling up waiting to be played. I may go back and finish it some day, or maybe not. If I'd played it back when it first came out in 2003, I'd have probably cared more about it.
Specifics.
In the game, you play as Joe, a dude who has been sucked into a super-hero movie that he was watching with his girlfriend Silvia, after she was also kidnapped into the movie by the big bad. Joe is given a henshin morpher thing by Captain Blue, the previous hero of the movie who had just been defeated by the big bad prior to the game's start. This allows him to morph into a super-hero similar to Captain Blue.
The game is a fairly traditional side-scrolling beat-em up game in most senses. However, the special powers that Joe gets makes things more interesting.
First is the time-slow-down power. This allows you to, well, slow down time. Not only does this make it easier to kill enemies, and reflect bullets that you otherwise couldn't even see, and such, it also sets up a multiplier that allows you to collect more V-points as you kill multiple enemies while it is active. These are used to buy and upgrade other powers later, when you get to a save point. It also allows you to temporarily deactivate flying platforms, so that they'll drop down to your level and let you climb aboard.
Second is the time-speed-up power. Again, the functionality is fairly obvious. It lets you move faster than normal. Good for fleeing from rolling rocks that are about to smash you, or to get through a timed door that is about to close.
Lastly is the zoom-in power. Didn't get a whole lot of use out of this one, aside from the required uses of it, such as hitting two switches to either side at the same time, or breaking through ceilings and floors.
As I said, I only made it to the beginning of the third stage. This is because I made it to the second stage boss once, got beaten by him a few times, stopped playing it, and then when I went back to the game later, it forced me to practically replay most of the second stage again before I could get to him again. It was annoying. I guess I am more of a modern gamer nowadays than I'd like to admit. Oh well. Finally beat him and got to the third stage, which actually turned out to be a side-scrolling flying shooter stage rather than the side-scrolling beat-em-up stages that came before. I didn't play much of it before I stopped though, and just haven't gone back to the game since. As I said, I have too many other games to really want to play this anymore at the moment. ^^;
So, overall, I'd say that Viewtiful Joe is a pretty cool game if you like that sort of thing, but it's just not one that really grabbed my interest enough to keep me playing it. I guess I'm just not as interested in platformers in general as I used to be. I haven't even played all that much of New Super Mario Bros Wii or Super Mario Galaxy 2 as of yet (and this is coming from a guy who got all 120 stars in the first SMG, in order to unlock the Great Green God, who I ended up not even playing as for more than a level or two). I'm roughly as far into each of those as I was into Viewtiful Joe, i.e. around the second world or so.
In the end, I'd give Viewtiful Joe a score of green stars out of a maximum of chocolate monkey.