CLASSIC GAMING
Ape Escape
Developer:  Sony Computer Entertainment
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Genre:  Platformer
Year:  1999
System:  Playstation


In the history of the Playstation, many great games from several companies enjoyed being part of one of the longest production runs in the history of videogames.  Resident Evil, Syphon Filter, Metal Gear Solid, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot and others.  Most of the games on the Playstation were made by other companies, unlike the Nintendo and Sega consoles that had a generous contribution of their own games thanks to their more focused game development departments.  Sony however have had a try now and again at making a game for their brainchild.  While they haven't done many games, one of the few they made became a successful surprise.

Story - Ape Escape begins with an albino ape named Specter, who finds a strange hat called a Peak Point Helmet, which raises the intelligence of anything that wears it.  On wearing it, Specter is revealed to be bent on world domination over the human race, and so he releases his fellow simians and donning them with the same helmets, they head towards the nearby laboratory of The Professor, who is busy with a time machine and working with his daughter Natalie/Katie.
At a similar time, two young boys known as Spike and Jake/Buzz are heading to the lab to visit the Professor.  The apes have already broken in and taken over the place, activating the time machine in order to head back into the past and rewrite history so that they become the rulers of the world.  Jake/Buzz is sucked into the time machine with the apes and Spike is left with the Professor.  It is now up to Spike, using the Professor's other gadgets in order to capture everyone of the 204 apes that are scattered throughout history as well as their leader, Specter.


Gameplay - Ape Escape has the objective of you travelling through three levels within each time period of history, to capture the required amount of apes in the level before you can progress to the next level.  Some of them are easily accessible  and only require some stealth and cunning to deal with.  Others are in less accessible places and can only be captured when you obtain better gadgets in the game to be able to reach them with.  At first, you only have a Stun Club and the Time Net.  The club is used to knock an ape unconscious, so you can capture them with the Time Net to send them back to the present.  As you progress through the game, other gadgets such as the Slingshot and the Water Net will become available to you.


One innovative design of the game is its use of both analog controller sticks.  This game can ONLY be played by an Analog Controller for this very reason.  The left stick is used for moving Spike around, and the right stick is for using your weapon in any direction of a full 360 degrees.  This is a tricky at first control to grasp but eventually it will become second nature to you.  In fact this control layout offers a somewhat more interactive experience in certain situations, such as when you are rowing a dinghy and you control each oar with both sticks, circling the sticks around in circles to row.
While Spike is quite a tough little lad, he is not invincible, and has his own health meter, measured by five cookies, one hit for each cookie.  When he runs out of cookies, he loses a life.  Cookies can be obtained either by defeating enemies or hitting special cookie bins in the levels later on.  There are also gold triangular energy chips, which if you collect 100 of, you gain an extra life.  The same can be done by obtaining the rarer icon of Spike's T shirt.  Another thing to collect are Specter Coins, which while tricky to find, offer you the chance to play minigames later at tthe Time Station, the central hub where Spike can go to another level, read up on the monkeys, play minigames and save his progress.


Graphics - Once again, blocky is the name, but this time it's blockanime style with the apes having wobbly looking knees and silly faces, the humans with wide eyes and weird hair, and the levels looking half-painted on and half-interactive.  In a way, the game is like an Anime cartoon in its style and design of several things, such as the apes' features which range from perhaps 6 basic expressions, or the modern era buildings looking quite Tokyoesque.  This is not a bad thing, as the graphics are not too eye-catching to distract you from your task.  Some of the levels however do look quite lovely, such as the Primitive Era beach level with sand and surf, water effects of the game being minimal but nevertheless cute little touches.

Music/Sound - The musician of this game is Soichi Terada, who does quite a good  job at further pushing the Anime feel with pop-boppy themes for the various levels, ranging from the gloomy beats of the Cryptic Relics level to the more orientally aligned theme of the Great Wall.  While not a superb soundtrack, it is pleasant to hear and will keep you amused with music suiting the cheeky apes' antics.  Sound is generally okay, with the cute little apes' squeaks and grunts whenever they do practically anything, to the whoommm effect of a new gadget appearing in your hand.  Voice acting however is a bit of a pain, sounding very stilted at times and obviously rehearsed, with the best of it being the voice of Specter, who not so much sounds like a mimic of Blofeld but rather a mimic of Dr Evil.


Ape Escape is one of the few platformers on the Playstation actually worth purchasing or spending time with.  It offers some humour, has a moderate difficulty level to try and capture all of the apes and collect the Specter Coins if you're a perfectionist.  For an attempt by an electronics company who themselves aren't too versed in videogame programming, this is a great effort of a game.  Go on, hurl those hairy fellas back in time.  It's quite fun.

Final's Final Rating - 8/10

Mmm well, we all have different opinions.  It is better than what you'd expect from Sony surely.  Ah well.