It starts off easy enough with a "Joe Danger Returns" level, teaching you the basics of movement on the bike. Press R2 to accelerator, L2 to break, and lean with the left analog stick; pull back on the stick while moving forward to pop a wheelie. As you unlock stages and the game progresses, more skills are introduced -- you gain boost by rocking wheelies and doing tricks; you use boost by holding X; hold square to duck under objects, then release it to hop; you can flip in the air after hitting jumps by leaning forward or backwards, and pull off different tricks by tapping combinations of the trigger buttons.
Any one thing by itself is simple to get the hang of, and you'll feel completely in control in no time. But you'll soon find that there's more than what you see on the surface in Joe Danger. It's not a game about simply going fast, although you'll be score on that. And it's not just about pulling off cool stunts, but that's factored into your total score per level as well. What Joe Danger actually is turns out to be an odd (and unsurprisingly fun) mixture of racing, stunt-based gaming, and
platforming?
Talking about Joe Danger, the four guys at Hello Games (yes, this title was created just by a tiny team of four) evident Excitebike, an obvious influence. But they also reference Sonic the Hedgehog, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, and even pinball. Combine the three, and you see the possibilities -- they're scattered all over the stages of Joe Danger that I've played. You roll on top of springs to launch up in the air, over a hurdle and on to a bullseye target to score more points. (You can even move forwards and backwards using the gas/break while in mid-flight.) While in the air, pull off tricks to earn even more points and boost to race quickly to the end, to rocket your score even higher. You can even link tricks together using the wheelie to boost a combo multiplier, not unlike Tony Hawk Pro Skater's manual move.
Each level is littered with obstacles -- ramps, jumps, shark tanks, and more -- and certain conditions are to be met in order to clear the level and earn Gold Stars. Acting as the currency in the game, you'll use the stars to unlock later levels. It's possible to complete stages without earning any stars (or even beating the base requirements for getting a bronze trophy), but you'll want to focus on certain goals to earn them: hit all of the targets in a level, collect all of the silver mini-stars scattered about the tracks, or full combo (by linking with the wheelie) an entire level. It seems like there's plenty of replayability here in each of the game's tracks.
