Ape Escape

[riggamack]

APE ESCAPE review

Ape Escape came out in 1999 on the PlayStation. Its unique and somewhat complicated controls made it stand out for its time.

Story summary

The story of Ape Escape is as follows. A white monkey from a circus, named Specter, came across a certain helmet created by a character know as the Professor. This helmet, called the Peak Point helmet was designed to "augment intelligence to heightened levels." Specter puts this helmet on, and instantly becomes a super capable genius monkey, now given the power of speech through the intelligence augmentation. Specter is now able to behave more humanely and most importantly, he can give an opinion. Specter didn't like how other monkeys like himself we're being used by humans for entertainment. He believes monkeys should have been in charge from the start. Using his superior skills, he design and invents hundreds of "monkey helmets" that he uses to control the other monkeys to fight back. Specter goes to the Professor with a gang of monkeys and bang up his lab and use the Professor's latest invention, a Time Machine. Spike and Jake, two of the Professor's "pupils" just arrived in time to see the monkeys leave through the time machine. A video appears on the Professor's monitor with Specter and he explains his plain to use the time machine to change history so that monkeys are on top. The Professor told Spike, Jake and Natalie (another "pupil") to work with him to stop Specter. You play as Spike, and you use the Professor's gadgets to help you catch monkeys.

Gadgets

Time Net - What you use to catch the monkey's. It resembles a futuristic large butterfly net. Highly recommended to be equipped with you at all times.
Stun Club - Used for hitting the monkeys to stun them, giving you an extra second or two to whip out the Time Net and catch them.
Monkey Radar - A radar that detects monkeys and can cam them so you can see them and the area around them.
Water Net - A weird yellow thing that allows you to swim and catch swimming monkeys.
Slingback Shooter - This Slingshot has three kinds of ammo, regular, explosive, and homing.
Super hoop - Green, yellow striped hoola hoop that can make you run faster and also attack enemies.
Sky Flyer - A little helicopter i n your hand that lets you jump higher when used.
RC Car - Remote control car that can attack and wipe out enemies, as well as press switches
Magic Punch - This is the last gadget in the game. It packs a serious punch and is way more powerful than the Stun Club.

Controls:

The controls stand out in this game a lot. The left analog stick is used to move Spike. The right controls which direction you use your gadgets (hard to explain.) The triangle, square, x, and circle button are used to call upon the mighty gadgets. Start brings up the menu. Select brings up the gadget page, where you assign gadgets to different buttons. The R1 and R2 are the jump buttons. And the D-Pad controls the camera. The L1 button brings the camera behind Spike and the L2 goes into perspective mode (1st person view.)

Gameplay

Shoot, I had so much fun catching those monkeys. The levels sometimes remind me of Zelda: OoT in the way the looked and felt, which bugged me a bit. The music was pretty good; I wouldn't mind having the soundtrack. Although the voice acting was really weird with it's long pauses and corny breathing. The Professor talked with his hands like a maniac so the audience wouldn't be bored with just looking at him being still and talking. The graphics were very 64 bit. everything looked like a Nintendo 64 game.

Despite all the game's flaws, I still give this game a good 7/10 rating. There are more games in the series that follow after the events in Ape Escape, which are improved greatly.

--Corey Mack:3

[dandymcgee]

I LOVE this game. I'll take 7/10, sounds like a fair review.

[JamesParkes]

One of the many classic platformers never to be ported over to the Nintendo 64 =(. I use to go over to my neighbor's house to play Ape Espace all the time!

[EdBoon]

Wow, I totally forgot this game existed. It was so badass. Actually I think it might be in my tub of old games, will have to check and play it again. Thanks for review

[LeonBlade]

I loved Ape Escape, I remember when I was a kid with my grandma and cousin's at Toys R Us we were looking around for things and I saw a PS1 demo of the game that you could play. It was the first time I ever had seen the analog controller for the PS1 and I thought it was awesome! I don't think I ever beat it when I was a kid, the game got really confusing towards the end, it was hard keeping up with what was going on. I remember always trying to get everything I could in the game to 100% it. I remember a lot of times seeing little bugs here and there in the game, especially with graphics if you could get the camera inside things it wasn't supposed to be in. I remember the one level where you have to get on a raft, and there was a sea monster in the small body of water. I was so scared of that thing as a kid, haha. If I fell in I would race to get back in the raft, it was thrilling.

[EdBoon]

I've looked everywhere, can't seem to find it. So disappointed.

[Lisergishnu]

Lovely game!