Joe Danger Touch Review

Joe Danger Touch reminds me why being a stuntman seemed so cool as a kid. Joe flips over tanks full of sharks, races into loop-de-loops with a smile on his face, and rides the gust of industrial fans dressed like a giant chicken. Through it all, he remains so chipper that even when he fails to ace a stunt he still does a little jig. Who am I kidding? Joe Danger Touch makes me realize that I still want to be a stuntman.

Joe Danger first wheelied his way onto consoles back in 2010. Both games offered an interesting mix of racing, platforming, and tricking, and each level was filled with enough collectibles to warrant a second run-through – though beating your friend’s high score would likely keep you coming back after you’d collected every last coin. Amazingly, Hello Games has taken most of the mechanics from the console entries and folded them into a hearty auto-run game for mobile platforms.

As Joe barrels through each level, you ensure his safety by navigating the obstacles through a simple one-touch system. Press down on the screen and Joe ducks; let go and he pops into the air. Some courses also allow you to switch tracks at certain marker points. Each level has it own list of secondary objectives to complete, such as collecting all the coins, perfectly timing all the jumps, or collecting a series of letters that spell “Danger.” The controls may be simple, but Joe’s stuck throttle ensures you have to master the timing of every jump and trick in order to keep your score up and avoid eating gravel.

The levels are short and digestible, which is good because you have to replay them several times. The deeper you move into the game’s campaign, the more coins you need to unlock new levels and new costumes that are required for certain levels. The various costumes give you different score bonuses, but the best ones require a lot of coins to unlock, meaning you have to perfect every level to unlock the really good stuff. But unless your GameCenter friends list is massive, you might not find that high score carrot very tempting.

Just because it’s on a smaller screen doesn’t mean that Joe Danger Touch is a lesser game. Hello Games has successfully boiled down all the major elements that made the series fun on consoles, making this handheld version just as entertaining as its console brethren.