Saru gecchu

Uh oh... It looks as if a bunch of monkeys have somehow gotten ahold of some helmets that pump up their intellect to the level of superhuman intelligence. About 200 of these suckers escape from their pens and travel through different time periods, hoping to rewrite history so that apes and monkeys will have the upper hand in the future. And, for some reason, YOU (a scrawny preteen boy) have been chosen to cut their plans short by chasing after the primates, using a variety of bizarre gadgets to snatch them up and bring them back to captivity. Man, I hate it when this happens!

In general, APE ESCAPE is a fun, imaginative game. The graphics aren't anything special, but the scenery is pleasantly colored and the landscape-layouts are impressive. The plot is zany and inventive to say the least, but the dialogue and subplots associated with it tend to be overlong and uninteresting. However, what lacks in the story department is totally made up for with all those goofy gadgets you get to make use of throughout the game. I never get tired of pestering the monkeys with that RC car!

The biggest and most maddening drawback of APE ESCAPE has got to be its gameplay. The controls are illogical and needlessly complex, undoubtedly due to the game's requirement for the DualShock Analog Controller. You see, in order to boost sales for this rock-heavy joypad, Sony created a small line of games that required it in order for them to be played at all. APE ESCAPE was the first.

Overall, this is a fun game to play passively for a couple of hours, but only the really devoted gamers will be willing to learn the complicated control-scheme needed to make it to the ending. Try GEX or SPYRO instead.