Seriously, Call Kenny Loggins
Because when you play Joe Danger you're in the Danger Zooooooooone!
Published: July 13, 2010
When you do any of these things; collecting coins in a string before time runs out, or besting a time trial or any of the other main objectives, you'll pick up stars, used as currency for unlocking levels further down the line. Because of this, you certainly don't need to accomplish every objective, and you're welcome to jump back and forth between levels later on to pull down better goals. This kind of free replay factor means you're never stuck on one level -- at least not when it's by choice.
With all that charm uniting things, it never feels unwieldy. I never got overwhelmed by all the available choices, but I was able to bounce back and forth like a ADD-addled kid, trying and re-trying and re-re-trying stuff until I got it or gave up, but the difficulty and introduction of late-game elements like being able to re-sculpt levels as you're racing in them only feeds into further distractions like the level editor.
Though the tools are absolutely ridiculous, the only major fault I can lay on Joe Danger is that Hello Games didn't quite go far enough when it came time to share things. A central hub with voting and remixing could have done wonders for the DIY community, but it really is a small thing; chances are if you know a couple friends who have the game, you'll have no problem picking them out of your PSN friends list and zipping off your latest diabolical machinations.
Regardless of the ease with which you can mess with things, they'll always look fantastic. If one were to gripe, it might be possible to complain about the low-res shadows, but I'm not one to poo-poo something when nearly everything else, from framerate to cleanliness in animation to sense of speed to lighting is all so damn good. Even the little OCD part of my head that tends to balk at things like the UI prompts sometimes having some weird artifacting couldn't get in the way. This is a pretty game, and you'll feel great playing it.
Plenty of the charm has to come down to the light mix of sound effects, semi-grumbled noises from the comeback stuntman himself and the plucky music. It all fits the whole look and feel of the game so perfectly that every little engine rev and "wooo hoooo" and crowd reaction ends up mixing into this heady concoction of "just one more time."
See? That was a lot of extra words that didn't really need to be said. This does, however: go buy this game. Log onto the PlayStation Store and purchase it now, because if there's one thing I'm sure about, it's that Joe Danger well end up being regarded as one of the best downloads you can get on the PS3 -- hell, it's one of the best games on the system, disc or download. Go buy it. You'll thank me later.
