Viewtiful Joe is a retro-themed throwback to one of the bleakest periods in video game history. It is a two-dimensional beat-up-the-evil-robots game. You advance the plot by walking to the right and punching things. By any measure of justice or good sense, it ought to have failed horribly.

But just look at the thing. Look at it for two minutes and try to stifle your enthusiasm. You will not succeed. An explosion of colour and wit and campy silliness, it all but leaps off the screen and drags you away to have a good time despite yourself.

That is how the game's own plot goes too. In the beginning, we meet Joe and Silvia, young sweethearts out on a date. They sit in a movie theatre watching a ridiculous Japanese superhero cartoon starring someone named "Captain Blue." Joe is enraptured, Silvia is not. At one point, bored, she tries to get a little off-screen action going, but Joe rebuffs her before things get into Alanis territory. "Cut it out," he says. Nothing is going to keep him from watching his beloved hero. Not even his own glands.

The universe apparently just can't cope with this at all. If you don't want Silvia, it says, then you can't keep her. And suddenly, without any fanfare at all, the evil monster in the movie reaches out and grabs the girl and pulls her, like a new-century Fay Wray, back into the screen. Joe is briefly befuddled, but then another hand grabs him and yanks him out of his seat in exactly the same way. The disembodied voice of Captain Blue tells Joe the awful truth: he is leaving the superhero business, and Joe must take his place in the fight against evil. Also, Joe must rescue Silvia, who has been kidnapped by, er, evil.

It is not a video game plot so much as a parody of a video game plot. But that is the point of Viewtiful Joe, really. The game denies itself every modern luxury. It contains no 3D action. It offers no cinematic storytelling. Its soundtrack is beepy and repetitive. Its play experience is borrowed from late-'80s-early-'90s beat-em-up games like Double Dragon and Bad Dudes. (For those lucky enough to have come of age after those two came and went, know this: both were certified turds.)

Yet somehow Viewtiful Joe is just about the greatest thing to hit video gaming since the turn of the century. How?

For one thing, there is Joe himself. In his superhero costume, he looks a bit like a Weeble. He is all red tights and barrel chest, and his helmet has a big hood ornament that makes him look like an Oldsmobile. His head is freakishly huge, dwarfing not just his own torso but everyone else's torso too. He yells magic words at random. He is goofy and stupid and you cannot suppress the urge to take him for a test drive.

He jumps like a kangaroo. His punches are quick and his kicks are deadly. This is helpful against the hordes of evil robots that attack him. In time, he acquires new superpowers. He learns to slow down time and dodge bullets. He learns to speed up time, turning his punches into lightning-quick worlds of hurt. He learns to zoom the camera in, which makes his stylish looping kicks fierce and unstoppable. Joe's powers are all film-related. Because he is a movie buff, see?

As the game moves along, you must solve the odd puzzle using those superpowers. When an evil helicopter threatens you, you simply slow down time. Its rotors cease kicking up lift, the machine falls to the floor, and Joe can, er, beat it with his fists.

There are other puzzles like that too, but you will probably figure them out on your own. Also, cheeseburgers are strewn everywhere. For health.