Joe Danger: Master of Disaster review

I will be honest; I sat here staring at my screen for a good twenty minutes trying to figure out how to best describe Joe Danger: Master of Disaster. No one has said it better than the development team over at Hello Games when they called Joe Danger, “Sonic on a motorbike.”

This game may look cartoon-like and simple, but don’t judge it so quickly and mistakenly call it “casual.” Joe Danger is a multi-level platformer at its core with the entire game being played on a dirtbike. There are insane jumps over pools filled with sharks, leaps of faith, skilled landings on targets, perfectly timed tricks and so much more. Don’t think of it as an Excitebike or Trials HD rip-off; it offers more personality than those two games combined.

At first, players might be a bit overwhelmed by all the controls and possibilities being thrown at them, but after a few runs on the easy courses, most should have a grasp of how to play. Joe Danger is the type of game where one run through a course is never enough. Most courses hold several different challenges that will require repeat visits by the player to accomplish everything. Some of the different challenges include: coin dashes, getting 100 percent on combos, exploring hidden areas for stars, time attacks, straight-up races, and collecting letters to spell out “DANGER” and silver stars.

With each completed challenge the player is rewarded a gold star that allows them to unlock more courses and challenges. This allows the gamer to decide how he or she wants to play the game. Do you want to play the game more like a racer with exhilarating speed? Or would you rather collect every single item and complete every challenge? Either way, there are a variety options to go back and play each course. For the creative types out there, there is even a sandbox mode that allows the players to build their own insane courses for their friends to play. In addition, gamers can even go head-to-head in the split-screen mode to see who can pull off the most impressive tricks.

Joe Danger is entertainment at its purest. While I expected it to be a cute game that would hold my attention in the first hour and then become repetitive from thereon after, it was anything but. What I didn’t expect was how addictive unlocking new courses and playing through the game on multiple playthroughs would be. Enjoyable from beginning till end, even with the spikes in difficulty as challenges became harder at the tail end of the game, Joe Danger has helped put Hello Games on the map as a developer to watch out for.