Product description
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The story begins when Specter, a white-haired monkey who is
well-known at his home in a monkey-themed amusement park, puts on
an experimental Peak Point Helmet created by a Professor, which
increases his intelligence beyond that of a regular monkey, but
also twists his mind, turning him evil. Imbued with this new
power, Specter gives Pipo Helmets to all the monkeys in the park
and sets them loose, having them take over the local laboratory
where the Professor and his assistant Natalie (Katie/Natsumi) are
currently building a time machine. As Spike (Kakeru) and his best
friend Jake (Buzz/Hiroki) arrive at the laboratory, they find
themselves transported by Specter, along with all the other
monkeys, to the various reaches of time. Realizing that leaving
the monkeys to their own devices could rewrite history in
disastrous ways, the Professor tasks Spike with finding all of
the monkeys scattered across time and sending them back to the
present.
.com
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What's more fun than a barrel of sable-thumbed simians? How
about the silly--but challenging--Ape Escape? While not the first
game to offer enhanced control with Sony's dual-stick analog
controller, Ape Escape is the first game to require either an
analog or dual shock controller (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00003CWH4/${0} ) to play. That requirement
ensures that players will have full control of their hero, Spike.
One stick moves Spike in any direction, while the other swings
his monkey-catching devices.
In Ape Escape, a circus monkey named Specter stumbles upon a
scientist's prototype intelligence-enhancing helmet, turning him
into an evil monkey genius. As Spike, the professor's young
friend, you must travel through time to clean up all of the
monkeys Specter has sent back in his attempt to repopulate the
world. If that's not enough to make you laugh, then chasing his
goofy monkey minions as they scurry from your clutches will
certainly tickle your funny . You'll discover a variety of
gadgets to help you in your quest, including monkey radar, a
sling, and a propeller for flying. Spanning 25 huge levels,
Ape Escape is approachable for novices, and offers added
challenges for veteran gamers. One such challenge is to lure a
dinosaur near a rocky cliff, and then jar the monkey off his back
and into your net. Note: no monkeys were harmed in the creation
of this game. --Jeff Young
Pros:
* Unique control scheme brings new challenge to the PlayStation
* Massive game has plenty of replay value
Cons:* Unique control scheme requires some ramp-up time
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Review
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The 3D platformer has been established for some time now, but
only recently has it be to come of age. Like any game in a
popular genre, it has been cloned many times with few successes.
Ape Escape excels in precisely what so many 3D platformers lack:
innovation and solid design. Don't let Ape Escape's title and
story fool you - behind the lame rhyme and kiddy story lies an
addictive, innovative action game that fans of the genre would be
advised not to miss.
Specter was the cutest monkey at the amusement park until that
eful day - the day he found the P-Point helmet. Once donned by
the curious simian, the helmet boosted Specter's intelligence to
super-genius levels. Tired of living to amuse spiky-haired
locals, Specter sends an army of monkeys into the past to rewrite
history and dominate the humans that embarrassed him all his
life. Caught in the villain's temporal wake, it's up to Spike to
scour Earth's history to capture the primate hordes and,
ultimately, Specter himself. While a little on the young side,
Ape Escape's story is ultimately pretty clever.
Ape Escape consists of more than 20 huge 3D levels based on a
variety of time zones. To clear a level, Spike must capture a set
number of monkeys. After filling that quota, you must access the
next level. Reaching the monkeys will require you to jump, swim,
climb, and fly through a variety of locales and situations. In
addition to dexterity, a job like this takes tools... or, in this
case, toys. Heading up your arsenal are a time net and a
lightsaber-esque stun club. The stun club simply incapacitates
the victims long enough to get the net around them, while the
netting itself unleashes a cascade of special effects that'll
whisk the monkey back to the present. Throughout the course of
the game, Spike will collect six additional gadgets. In addition
to providing the means of completing future levels, returning to
previous levels with new gadgets will allow Spike to capture any
monkeys he left behind. The monkeys themselves vary in speed and
strength and come equipped with weapons all their own to make
their pursuit all the more interesting. In addition to monkeys,
each level has specter tokens to collect. Collecting enough
tokens will open minigames that exist simply to provide you with
more entertainment. The resulting experience is simple to master
but addicting nonetheless. "One more monkey" will quickly become
"one more level."
While there are plenty of games with a solid concept, it's not
every day that a game can actually pull it off in execution. Ape
Escape is the only game on the PlayStation that requires a Dual
Shock controller and takes full advantage of its buttons and both
sticks. While it may sound daunting, Ape Escape's control is
beautifully executed, easy to master, and, above all, intuitive,
Ape Escape elegantly uses both analog sticks - the left controls
your movement and the right controls the gadgets themselves. To
make sure you get the hang of things, however, each tool comes
with a mandatory training session to interactively instruct you
on its uses through actual practice. You can select up to four
items for instant use at any given time, greatly reducing
annoying inventory selection. The digital directional pad
controls camera movement, aided with the left-hand shoulder
buttons. Although the camera controls are sometimes frustrating,
they are easily among the best in the genre. The only other
control issue is a general frustration when controlling Spike
underwater. In the end, however, Ape Escape's control is
top-notch.
As one might expect from a Sony-backed game, Ape Escape is a
to behold. Each of the game's huge levels is rife with
detail and color. In addition to the beautiful visuals, the game
is backed by some strong, brilliant coding - the horizon line is
surprisingly far out for a game of this type on the PlayStation
while keeping an almost completely slowdown-free frame rate. The
playful techno soundtrack is stage-appropriate and mildly
interactive - for example, moving stealthily douses some of the
music's instruments to give it a mellower flavor. While the
game's sound effects are nice, the voice-acting in the game's
real-time cinematics is uniformly atrocious.
Ape Escape is one of the PlayStation's finest development
efforts, one that shouldn't be overlooked because of its silly
storyline and title. Underneath these lies one of the best 3D
platformers to date, brimming with innovation, originality and
fun. --Peter Bartholow
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot
logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc. -- GameSpot Review
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- Requires Dual-Shock Analog Controller to play.