Viewtiful Joe is designed to offer classic platform action with state-of-the-art graphics and visual effects. Players take control of regular "Joe," a cel-shaded hero whose side-scrolling adventures are presented in the style of a movie. Joe soon gains the ability to transform in to Viewtiful Joe, a superhero with the power to befuddle his enemies with cinematic special effects. As he makes his way through the adventure, he earns new and more powerful abilities. These powers allow Viewtiful Joe to execute special combos, or even control the flow of time. He can speed things up for a flurry of fisticuffs, or borrow a trick from Max Payne to slow the action for some cinema-style battle. Conceived and designed under the guidance of Capcom's Atsushi Inaba (producer of Steel Battalion) and Hideki Kamiya (director of Devil May Cry), Viewtiful Joe offers GameCubers a fresh look at classic side-scrolling combat.