Dre's Top 25 Games: The NOT top 10 Entry 13

With my readership dwindling (according to the statistics of blogger.com) I will have to suck it up and finish this out, even if only 10 people are reading it.

Recap time:

-Day 1: Metroid: Other M
-Day 2: Batman: Arkham Asylum
-Day 3: inFAMOUS
-Day 4: Street Fighter 4
-Day 5: Rock Band 2
-Day 6: Portal
-Day 7: Bioshock
-Day 8: God of War
-Day 9: Lumines
-Day 10: Halo 2
-Day 11: Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
-Day 12: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Day 13

Viewtiful Joe
-GameCube (also on Playstation2) October 7, 2003

There is one sentence that my best friend Jai said to me the day after I started this game (at his recommendation) and I was struggling with a mini-boss early on. It has stayed with me to this day and it is how I describe the game to anyone who has yet to play it.

"Dre, you can punch the bullets."

That statement unlocked the point of this game and I felt like Neo at the end of the first Matrix movie. I realized that the time powers of the game where I can slow down or speed up the game affected EVERYTHING on the screen. Enemies, bullets, explosions, vehicles, even the rate a room fills with water. Suddenly a simple punch and kick game was filled with an uncanny depth and clever puzzles that utilized all of these varying elements.

OMFG the combat. WOW. Slow down time and your punches have double the impact. Speed up time and you punch so fast that you set the enemy on fire! Zoom the camera in and hit even harder with elaborate and stylized kicks and punches. Dodge opponents attacks with style in slow motion with a taunt tossed in. There is an artistry and flair to the flow of combat. It makes you feel like an epic action/martial arts movie star that defeats wave after wave of enemies without a scratch on you. There is even a crazy game mode where this type of behavior is encouraged, where if you are even touched by an enemy, it's game over! A nice nod to the old 8-bit game era where this was commonplace.

Easily one of my all time favorites, just pure fun.

Tomorrow we rewind all the way back to 1998, previous console generation!