Money may talk, but it doesn’t make great games. That’s been proven by four guys in a small office. They’ve just developed and released a game called Joe Danger. And Joe Danger happens to be amazing. It’s a platformer game which sees you take control of Joe – a stunt biker who is trying to make his return after a tragic accident many years ago. This may sound a little depressing – but it’s absolutely hilarious.
With just you and your trusty bike, you have to make your way along the stunt track which is scattered with obstacles, jumps, ramps and stars. You need to perform well enough to get through, mainly by landing some impressive tricks and jumps and trying to avoid landing on your head.
As you start the race, you’ll have a healthy Joe, a shiny bike and a boost bar full of juice. The boost bar acts as nitrous for the bike and propels Joe really fast across the track along with flying up ramps and other props. The boost bar must be full to use, and is filled by doing tricks and jumps. The good thing is you’re rarely ever out of boost as you’re constantly doing tricks and it’ll fill up pretty quickly.
These are just some of the hilarious objects in the game.
The objects in the game are surprisingly fresh. There’s a specific one, which you crash into to send you into the air. You can go forward, backward or straight back down. You can even land on you head. This is just one of many wacky objects that make this game a Hell’s Angel’s style funhouse. Along with these quirky features are ramps, separated by broken down busses for you to jump over, shark-infested water tanks and other dangerous objects.
The game, however, is all about the score. The score which will decide whether you advance and the score that will decide how many stars you get. To get scores, you need to do tricks while you’re in the air. Land some awesome tricks and you’ll be rewarded with a bulky point sum. Keep those tricks going and they’ll turn into the most important aspect of the game: combos.
Simply using the rinse and repeat method of landing one trick, getting the points and doing it again will see you fail miserably and the game. You need to land on one wheel, use your boost to strategically send you high enough for a worthwhile jump on a small ramp and keep going until the finish line or until you’ve scored enough for that combo. Remember, though, if you end up killing Joe (or knocking him off his bike at least) mid-combo, all that score goes down the drain. It’s a bit like Tony Hawk’s if you’re familiar with how their combo system works.
Performing tricks in the game is vital to your score … and fun.
There are other modes, like racing, but nothing beats the raw fun of landing some awesome high points and collecting stars. The stars scattered across levels prove very beneficial when calculating your final score, so getting those is extremely important. All of this adds up to add a nice challenge to the game, and it can either make or break your chances of advancing.
A nice touch is the multiplayer feature, which allows you to play against other PlayStation players as you’d expect. It wasn’t very laggy, but I did endure some rough patches. Overall, however, the online games proved smooth and enjoyable.
The real magic of this game lies with the creation tools. This game is an amazing addition to the whole “Play, Create, Share” brand Sony is pimping. Wanna know just how good the game is? The creation tools are amazingly advanced and can rival that of ModNation Racers. The ease of use is scary, as it’s just a choose and drop method and you can make anything you want within minutes.
The story is of generous length, and the graphics and sound are awesome. Joe is funny and the physics are admirable. I could go on. the raw fun of this game is what PAIN should have been. Joe Danger now stands proudly at the forefront of the PlayStation indie scene and rightly so. Joe Danger is dangerously close to becoming the best PSN game ever.
[review pros="Amazing run factor; quirky and genius tracks; stunning creation tools." cons="Multiplayer can lag occasionally." score="94"]
