Joe Danger [PSN]

Hendo · March 5, 2010

This looks very special indeed.

4 man team, collective CV's include work for Criterion, Kuju and Sumo Digital, due for PSN release (only one because of the small size of the team), here's the EG preview, highlights follow:

Joe Danger, a charming mixture of platforming, trial biking and seventies hand-organs.
It's tempting to bundle Joe Danger into the same box as a lot of retro remakes - and it would fit very nicely in there, too, with its SEGA blue skies, Sonic the Hedgehog level design and pinball attitude to high scores and reward - but it's also dashingly contemporary in other respects. There's a level editor that's about as hard to use as air, where you can pause the game mid-jump and insert something to land on. There are friends leaderboards while you play.

For the most part in Joe Danger you proceed through left-to-right 2D tracks, many of which have three planes of depth that you can navigate between at junctions. You collect coins and D-A-N-G-E-R letters and hunt for secrets, all the while trying to avoid whacking your head on hurdles, impaling yourself on spikes or landing in a shark pit.

At the end, you're rated and awarded stars based on several criteria - whether you beat a certain time (no), whether you got all the pickups (yes!), if you strung a continuous combo together (nearly), and others depending on the stage. For your efforts you're rewarded with stars, which you can use to buy access to new levels.

The emphasis changes to keep things fresh. "For me [at the high end] it's Sonic but with the combo," says Murray. "You'll cane through a level like that and hit all the targets, and you're doing it without knowing you're doing it, and then get all the rewards. You slowly build up this repertoire, and any one of them on their own isn't hard, but when you come to doing them all together it's quite an intense experience. You feel like you've been through something when you finish a level."

There are constants, of course. One is the instant-restart button. It's one of the game's most important controls once you start eyeing up those goals, allowing you to zone in on its charms without interruption and turning the old "one more go" cliché on its head. Games like Trials HD and Joe Danger aren't about whether you choose to have another go; another go has already begun, so they're about whether you choose to stop.

There are also retro references galore to go with the 21st century 16-bit aesthetic - Mario switch-palace coin-dash start buttons, Tony Hawk letter-collection, green hills and more blue skies than you can shake a hedgehog at.

One thing the platform announcement does mean, of course, is that it will be more tempting than ever to compare Joe Danger to Trials HD. "2D bikes! But on PS3!" To do so though would be slightly erroneous. There are flashes of Trials in here, but there are also vast, 40-foot searchlights of Sonic the Hedgehog, Tony Hawk and definitely Sidhe Interactive's lovely and under-loved GripShift.

I think I've found my game of the year.

Hendo · June 1, 2010

And no-one else cares.

Still, this is out next Wednesday (9th of June) for a tenner.

HandsomeDead · June 1, 2010

So it's Trials HD meets Excite Bike? Two games I've never played, I may try it on sale or if it has a demo.

retroed · June 1, 2010

Was this planned for a 360 release? At 2:26 there's a picture of the 360 controller with controls, which indicates that video was 360 footage.

Anyway... http://www.hellogames.org/2010/05/hello-games-at-night/

Jimboxy · June 1, 2010

Was this planned for a 360 release? At 2:26 there's a picture of the 360 controller with controls, which indicates that video was 360 footage.

Anyway... http://www.hellogames.org/2010/05/hello-games-at-night/

well spotted eagle eye ed.

Hendo · June 2, 2010

I think it was developed using the 360 pad because it's easier to do that with the PC dev kit. They said they intended to put it out on other formats but there's only a handful of them so they have to just stick with one format for now.

Mind you, I also heard it was being published by Sony so maybe they can't anymore?

retroed · June 7, 2010

IGN - 9.5

Game Informer - 9

Eurogamer Sweden - 9

Sixth Axis - 9

Pretty good, then.

David · June 8, 2010

Sony pay out the games development money plus a fair amount of the actual money the game makes in return for exclusivity, so I'd imagine that's what they've done.

They are only four guys after all. Game looks pretty good too! I'll have to get my mate to download it.

Craymen Edge · June 8, 2010

I stopped paying attention to this one when it was revealed to be PSN only for now, since I won't be able to play it for the time being. It does look great though.

I remember reading about how they managed to get dev kits from Sony and Microsoft.

http://www.edge-online.com/blogs/sony-and-microsoft-round-one

Hendo · June 8, 2010

Joe Danger developer Hello Games has said that it may consider porting its PlayStation 3 title to other formats, including Xbox 360, but it would have been humanly impossible to get the game out on multiple platforms initially.
"It does run on 360. I shouldn't say that, but it does," Hello MD Sean Murray joked on the Eurogamer.net Podcast today.

"We're just four dudes making the game. It takes everything we've got to just bring it out on one platform. People probably don't understand that, but it's this huge amount of work, and huge amount of money to do that.

"We're kind of free agents after this, so we'll see, and we want to get our game out there. But no, we couldn't have brought it out on lots of different platforms. That would've killed us."

Murray also said the team would continue to support the game with extra features after release, including the option to save and share replays.

"Yes, that's... unannounced, but we don't have any press plans so that's absolutely fine," he said when we prompted him about it. "There's loads of stuff like that that we're adding. We can't wait to get the game out there so people can tell us what they want."

Earlier Murray had said that the team of four guys at Hello came to a point during development where they had to stop adding new things and get the game out of the door.

"We made the game, and then we eventually had to stop. It was literally like, 'We've all run out of money now. We have to stop.' We just, even now, are still continuing to add stuff and to get a patch ready and stuff like that. It's just a labour of love," he explained.

"We just throw in everything that we can, and there's some stuff that didn't make it that we will keep putting in and everything. People have said, 'Have you got DLC plans?' or whatever, and if we were smart we would have maybe kept back some of the game like publishers do, but we just threw everything in."

Hope it comes on XBLA because I wouldn't get much play out of it on the PS3.

HandsomeDead · June 10, 2010

Giantbomb quicklook.

I'm converted now, but I have so much to go through I don't want to add to my unplayed games. I do have over £20 sitting on my PSN account but I must resist. It's £9.99 for those interested.

retroed · June 10, 2010

I too am sold, I'll definitely be picking it up soon. All I want to go with it are Ryan and Jeff to be sat either side of me while I'm playing.

Joe Danger [PSN]

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