Having that out of the way, lets talk about the gameplay, because you all know I'm not a big fan of story lines. This game is a solid 3rd person platformer which progresses in a linear fashion through 10 missions. The missions fall into 3 basic categories: (1) Get through a stage (2) Shoot everything in a stage and (3) Kill a boss. This is par for the course and there's no doubt that you've played similar games before. However, where Gun Valkyrie excels is the range of movement you have because of the jet pack. The jet pack allows you to sprint forward, fly to various cliffs/stone towers, hover, and do acrobatics all while shooting your enemies to smitherines. The ability to fly and shoot at the same time opens up this game to a combination of puzzles and action. You have to figure out how to get from one stone tower to the next, find various doors and search out hidden enemies. This can be quite entertaining and, in my opinion, is more fun than 3rd person platformers where you're stuck to running around (Onimusha, I'm looking in your direction).

All of this movement and flying would get pretty confusing if the controls were not set up as well as they are. The left trigger fires your jet pack. The right trigger fires your gun. The left analog stick moves you, and the right analog stick aims your gun/looks around. Each button is assigned a weapon, so switching back and forth is a breeze. There is a good map, which you access with the white button. The controls have a pretty steep learning curve but become fairly natural within an hour or so of gameplay, but I'll warn you now, you'll definitely get some carpal-tunnel from playing this game.

The graphics are excellent. Both indoor and outdoor worlds are strikingly detailed and offer the gamer much to explore and get lost in. I'd say the look and feel is a bit HALOesque.

As a final thought, this game takes some getting used to. I didn't find it fun until about the 3rd level, after many hours of playing. Same with Allison. At first, she didn't like it all. Now, we can't put it down. Especially after spending 3 days of our time trying to get past one level. Finally a challenging game that I actually like.