Remember back to the days of the SNES - the days when graphics weren't much of a bother, the days when side scrolling beat-em-ups were king. Once the Playstation and Nintendo 64 were brought out, the genre seemingly died off. A few small games like Fighting Force aside, it looked like side-scrollers were banished to distant memories of the 16 bit glory days. With the dawn of a new era came the dawn - or re-birth, if you will, of this genre and Viewtiful Joe looks to have resurrected the classic genre from the dead, and with some style.Yes, it may have an insanely stupid name, and it is typical for a game aimed at a Japanese audience - Are 'Super Monkey Ball' or 'Bomberman' good names? I rest my case. The games name suddenly sounds an awful lot better when you hear what it was called previously - Red Hotman, which, other than sounding like a new toy for children under 5, was far too camp for something this cool.

The game was announced with 4 others at a recent press conference by Capcom, and all 5 are exclusive GameCube games. If you were fans of Streets of Rage, Golden-axe and the like, this will be right up your street. Instead of trying to go up the 3 dimensional route, it's taken a path which has begun to look snazzier than ever, and one which a legend has already taken. Cel shading looks to be the future of all things hip in the world of gaming, and the new Zelda game has laid the groundwork for that. Viewtiful Joe, named after the red spandex wearing super hero it stars, could just be the game which makes developers stand up and take notice of this fantastic new direction.

Yes, I did just say that both Zelda and VJ are Cel-Shaded, but, despite that, both look very different, Viewtiful Joe has made itself into a living, interactive cartoon, going back to the SNES's 2-D ways. This could be a turn off for some gamers though - mainly those that only buy games if they are cool (Grand Theft Auto 3 anyone?), and only own a console because their friends instructed them to. Thankfully, most people like that own a PS2, and GameCube owners can usually look beyond the cover of the book and see what is good inside.

Luckily, it sounds like Viewtiful Joe has some really good game play. The creators, the great Capcom, have said that the game will rely more on skillful battling than button bashing. How you can be skillful in a side scrolling beat-em up is anybodies guess, but if anybody can pull this off, it is Capcom. You play as Viewtiful Joe, a guy that can get super-powers and must try to save the world and his girlfriend, the gorgeous Silvia. Where have we heard this before? But what does it matter eh, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Word has it that the fighting style hails resemblance to that of games such as Max Pain, that slow-mo Matrix-style, be interesting to see that. Naturally power-ups are on offer, details of which are scarce but warping into matrix-style may well be a power-up along with other cool effects.

As ever, the Japanese are getting the game first, with early 2003 being touted as the probable release date. I doubt that Capcom will even consider bringing it out on these shores before 2004, if ever - It's a well known fact that games developers hate giving PAL regions classic gaming experiences, just look at Animal Crossing.

Until the day that the little Superhero touches down over here, we can live in hope, and barrage Capcom with threatening emails.