Sin and Punishment is no S&M game. It's an on rails shooter SIMILAR to Starfox. Let me explain the on rails part first. In Starfox, you'll always be moving forward, in SP, you move forward, shooter some bad guys, then move forward again. But that's not to say there aren't stages that makes you always move forward. There's also on side scrolling boss battle and also one side scrolling section in the final stage.
Let me explain the gameplay a little. That game is very simple. You shoot. You can either lock on and shoot, or shoot without lock on. It's more powerful without lock on. You can roll to the left and right, and also double jump. What's interesting is that when you get close to solid objects, you can tap the shoot button to use a lightsaber like weapon to slice. Using this weapon allows you to smack some projectiles back at the enemies. There's even a little lightsaber boss duel.
Now you're all wondering what's so special about the game right? Imagine a shooter that throws literally hundreds of enemies on screen with no slow down. One stage has you flying on a piece of... floor, ripped out from a air craft carrier. That's Starfox like on rails, only way too insane. You have to see the stage to believe it. You're flying over the ocean, 10 planes shoot at you. Huge battle ships on the ocean with tons of helicopters and soldiers for you the shoot. The screen is filled with hundred of lasers, bullets, and other crap. Since you're flying on a piece of floor, the damn thing rolls left and right(nothing happens to you though, it just makes it look really cool) flying over tons of battle ships, killer robots, and end up in a duel with this HUGE flying fortess. Other stages has enemies that keeps coming and coming, like the subway battle. These weird creatures come from all over the fly. Weird flying orbs appear to hurt you, giant monsters spitting flames drop in from the roof. With tons of stationary objects for you to shoot. The insanity of the final battle is like a freaked up version of Missile Command. You shoot at everything that moves trying to protect it from crashing into the earth. Imagine like 20-30 lasers, asteroids, fireball thinges all hurling towards earth and you have can imagine how insane the action is. It's pee-your-pants-blink-and-die action.
One of the things few people mention is the music of this game. The music is simply awesome. Arghh, it's hard to understand when you're talking about music, but just take my word for it. Let's not forget the brilliant plot of this game. The voice acting is in english, and it THE STORY MAKE ZERO SENSE!!! Trust me, it's not a bad thing. Who the hell plays Contra for plot anyway?
Now for the part that'll really piss people off. This game isn't really all made by Treasure. The game is actually a joint project between Treasure and Nintendo themselves. Hell, you'll even see NOA make it to the credits, something that never happens in a Japanese game. Basically, even NOA was involved in the making of this game, yet they choose not to release it here in America.