Hello! I can’t describe what this feels like: Joe Danger is released exclusively to PlayStation 3 today. This is both the most exciting and nerve wracking day of my life.
Two years ago, three friends and I decided to make a game together. Hello Games formed and sat around playing with a box of toys. One stunt cycle in particular. Firing it out windows and imagining a game featuring that hapless rider.
The truth is, back then we didn’t really know what we were doing. We didn’t know if we could make the game we wanted with just four people. We had worked on some big titles before, games like Burnout and Black, and those were huge teams of hundreds. All of us had been dreaming of making our own games, probably since we could play them. In the end it was just something we had to do.
Last Friday night we all sat up waiting for our first review. It turned out to be a 9.5 on IGN, their highest ever rated PSN game. Then we got a 9 in GameInformer, their Game of the Month (the first ever for PSN). Amazing! Check out some more awesome reviews here and here.
We’ve literally poured everything we have into Joe Danger. It’s been an incredibly difficult two years, but to see people enjoying what we’ve done is the most rewarding feeling in the world. It’s why we’re so excited for the release. This is the game we’ve always wanted to make, for each of us it’s every game we’ve loved crammed into one innovative and tight package. I thought I’d let the others members of Hello Games describe what they love about the game.
Grant: “I’m the sole Artist and I designed most of the levels for Joe Danger. Christmas ‘92 I got Sonic, and played it straight ‘til Christmas ‘93. I wanted to create levels with that crazy feeling of speed, those sudden leaps of faith and the fluid feeling when you are in the zone. You might be on a Bike, but for me Joe is a platformer at heart. Just one at 200mph.”
David: “I’m the Gameplay guy on Joe Danger. Before I had my C64 and California Games, I was Pinball obsessed. I’ll basically do anything for a multiplier. Tony Hawks Pro Skater and Jet Set Radio were huge for me at Uni when I was learning to skate. It’s all about that extreme tension when you’ve built up some huge score Combo, and just one mistake will wipe it all out in an instant. Joe Danger is fast and frantic, but really it’s all about highscores for me.”
Ryan: “I’m the main technical dude at Hello Games. I’m that guy who loves nothing but racing games, speed-runs, time attacks. Excitebike, Trackmania, Crazy Taxi and Burnout have been big games to me and I guess that’s rubbed off. Joe Danger is never anything but fast, whether you’re trying to grab every coin in Coin Dash, or neck and neck racing for the finish line. It’s all about Boost. Stunts feeds your boost, allowing for even bigger air and crazier Stunts. Boost is that glue between racing, comboing and platforming.”
Once again, Joe Danger is on the PlayStation Store in America later today and we really hope you enjoy it! Spread the word.
You can keep up to date with Hello Games and Joe Danger on our blog, follow us on Twitter or even just send us a mail!
Can’t wait for this–I’ll be buying it tonight!
Also, just wondering: does the game support custom soundtracks? If not, please add this option in the future. However, people saying that the lack of Custom Soundtracks is a deal-breaker are idiots. Shame on them.
I’d certainly buy it today, but Peace Walker comes out today as well, and frankly I don’t see myself playing anything else for a while.
Yes! The dude from Capy even posted! Now I HAVE to buy Joe Danger.
Is the game 4 player local or 4 player online? Game looks amazing by the way.
THIS GAME LOOKS GREAT A MUST BUY ON MY PART I LOVE THAT THE PSN FINALLY GOT A REALLY GREAT EXCLUSIVE AND SUCH A HIGHLY RECIEVED GAME FOR ONCE WE NEED MORE EXCLUSIVES JOE DANGER A MUST BUY
As soon as I get home from work, this is a major priority for me….downloading the Joe Danger…..hells yeah!!!
Looks really fun but wish if it was $10 only :P
Anyone know when Joe goes live? aka put on the Playstation store…
Instant buy!!
You guys have done incredibly impressive work, I’m so glad to see it’s paying off.
I hope we’ll be seeing more of you on the ps blog. :P
I can’t say enough great things about this game and the developers. My wife and I played it at PAX and we were instant fans. They told us it was not complete at the time, but it looked like a fully finished game. The devs are great guys…show them some love!
We definitely will be purchasing this tonight. I will play with my inflatable tire from PAX. Congrats Guys!!
Well done hello games!! Will buy day1 to support this game. Looks great and IM happy that you will patch in custom ingame music!
Im also VERY happy that this game is an exclusive to PS3.
WHY?
Because exclusive games define a console. It make the hole idea of having different consoles relevant.
@jeepdeep
That’s not an infinite loop. The second thing you do is :
playing.JoeDanger() == true;
Ignoring the fact that you are 1. using a compare instead of an assign (== instead of =) and 2. Assigning a value directly to a method, I will suppose that you wanted to set that to true, which would in turn break your loop.
Also, it would make more sense to do JoeDanger.playing().
Don’t take it badly. I work as a programmer and most of what I do is use my battle axe on other people’s code. ;)
Looks entertaining, but $14.99 is way too much for a PSN game. I thought this would be a budget game around $4.99 – $6.99. If it ever drops that low, then I might consider it.
@mywhitenoise: This is a full-length title and trust me, if Game Informer and IGN give it their top-honors for any PSN game, you know it’s something special.
I will be picking up later today.
I’ll purchase and pass the work along.
This look sooooo great. TYVM :D
Thanks for patching in custom soundtrack. As as a fan of Burnout and Black, I have to support you guys by buying this game :) I will be buying this next Thursday when I am done with school.
I think this shows all you need is creative freedom and not 50+ million dollars to make a fun and fresh game for the industry. Congrats to you guys because you guys earned it.
Time to buy the kid summer clothes and at $14.99 Ill simply have to wait :( Reminds me of the excitebike days growing up. Bummer was looking forward to it.
we’re just a poow wittle devewopment team twyging to make ends meet.
would it have cost you more to add extra things in the game that are available to you in the dev kit?
online multiplayer
custom soundtracks
home rewards
were you able to get trophies in the game at least?
I’m forcing my friends to buy this game, seriously I’m forcing them since they don’t understand what dlc is and how to go about purchasing from the PlayStation Store?!?!? (Need new friends)
Important question from one of them, how large of an install? One of my forced friends has 3g only (small Texas town) so downloading might be impossible. I’ll still force him to buy, just would be great if he could play it too.
Will buy this day tomorrow(Europe).
#67 yes their will be 15 trophies.
Trophy list:http://www.ps3trophies.org/game/joe-danger/trophies/
I’m super excited for this, but unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until next week to pick it up, as money is a little tight for me and the missus right now. However, this does seem like something she’ll be interested in. Nice job guys!
Hey Sean,
It’s me DZormagen (I e-mailed you the picture of Joe Danger in ModNation Racers). I just want to congratulate you on the release of this game! Welcome to Playstation Nation!! I will buy for sure today (been looking forward to this for a long time). One question, how big is file of the game?
By the way this is for people that still don’t know about the how good this game is going to be? It is getting high scores on A LOT of web-site! When I say high score I mean 9s, 9.5s!! Everyone should buy Joe Danger today!!! :)
I cleaned out as much space from my PS3 as possible, as I’m not really sure how big this game will be. I’ll be checking every 10-15 minutes for it to be posted. Don’t worry guys, this game will do fine. ;)
This may have been asked already, but does this game run in 1080p? It has a great visual style.
I don’t really like buying games without playing a demo just to make sure I like it ! Paying $14.99 for a game that I can’t try hands-on is a bit daunting for me but I’ll give it a try when it lands on psn !
Just want to confirm, the track sharing is with anyone on PSN or friends only?
Definitely looks engaging.
Ouch! I was planning on buying this game but at $14.99 I’ll wait for a price drop. $5 more I can actually get an old bluray disc game at bestbuy.
I think I read somewhere that in order to track share you would have to send the saved tracks to friends via a PSN msg. I know it’s possible to send photos as attachments, not so sure about other file types, so don’t quote me on that. BTW was it ever mentioned that Red Dead Redemption supported custom soundtracks, because I’ve had the game since release, and didn’t know until yesterday that it supported it. Just happened to click on my music, and it started playing, I thought I would receive the standard “music cannot be played during this game msg”
How hard is the progression in this game?
I don’t want to pay $15 for a game and get stuck after 15 minutes on the 4th level like what happened in Wakeboarding HD. That game had a demo but I didn’t think we could get stuck so early in the game and not be able to play the rest of a game that we already paid for. If it were disc based I’ld get rid of it somehow but there’s no recourse on downloads.
@77 TakiFuGu
While you are waiting for a measly $5.00 drop (which probably will not happen any time soon), all of us will be enjoying this awesome game!! Have fun!! LOL
I bought a PSN card just 4 this, congratulations !!
This game looks fantastic! Will there be a demo avail today as well? Got laid off on Friday… so funds are tight at the moment.
In regards to level sharing:
However, there is one large caveat with the editor: There is no dedicated server support where player-created levels can live. Instead, created levels can only be sent as PSN messages to other players on one’s Friends list. It would be impossibly expensive to maintain a server where user-created levels are housed, although Hello Games is more than welcome to add that support … provided the studio can sell enough copies of Joe Danger to afford that capability.
This comes from a GDC Hands-on posted on PS3 Fanboy: http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/10/joe-danger-psn-preview/
I bought my first motorcycle this past Saturday and I’ll be buying Joe Danger (and HIS motorcycle) today. Synergy!
Here’s to great sales and a massive Blu-Ray disc-based sequel!
this game looks awesome, also the review from IGN seems to confirm it, but it seems I won’t be able to buy it since Sony suddenly decided to stop supporting entropay :'(
Oh cool, I used to play this game all the time when it was Excite Bike.
I’m sorry, but if you want a sale, I need a demo. That goes for all games.
Now THIS is the OPPOSITE of Shovel-ware.
I shall christen it:
Essential-Ware.
Well looks like Qore Renewal would have to wait :). I like rank up high scores. http://ps3.ign.com/articles/109/1094988p1.html gave 9.5 out 10 Would we in later on edited our own race tracks? As DLC?
What’s taking so long for PSN to update?????? Going crazy waiting to get Joe!!!
I’m seriously checking my PS3 hourly to see if the store has been updated today. I am very eager to get my grubby little mitts on this one and for 15 bills It sounds like a hell of bargain for the amount of game were getting. Update already!!!one!!!
While waiting for the store update, I’m spending the time e-mailing all my PS3-owning friends to let them know about this awesome game.
I fully intend to reach and then remain atop the friends-only leaderboard.
Can we buy this game in stores? Or is this a PSN DLC game? Just curious…
Must buy for me. Looks like the best game out on PSN in Months.
@94:
Download from PSN only. Not available in stores.
will this be available on amazon.com?
I will definitely buy this if the code is available on amazon bcuz I have game credit there.
@ 91 updates around 5pm est time to 9pm est time. :)
my god, I cant wait!!
nerve wracking? why? we’re buying this awesome game!!!! after the 9’s it got from reviewers, lol people who don’t pick this up are crazy.