Douglas's game of the week: Ape Escape

Ape Escape is the first Playstation game to feature analog only support. This game is a pioneer-It is probably the first game to feature Dual-Analog control and to use just about every single button on the controller.

The graphics of Ape Escape is its lowest points-Despite being released in 1999, they're still annoying-Sure, they're not irritating colours or anything, but they seem a little staticy, and sometimes if you rotate the camera, you find Spike standing in midair. The graphics in Final Fantasy 7 are better and it was from like '97.

The gameplay is where the game stands high-The dual-analog controls this game features is very ingenious, alltough almost everything is dual-analog controlled. And in some cases, it is not a good thing. The tank controls are a little annoying, the sling-back shooter is annoying because it doesn't automatically go into first person mode like its sequal does, and most importantly, the rowboat controls just make you wanna SCREAM. No wait-AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!! But otherwise, it is still one of the most ingenious ideas ever, because you can now do a spin attack without having to charge it up like in some games *Cough*Zelda*Cough*.

The storyline is okay, the professor invents a hat that'll boost intelligence for any primate wearing it. And sure enough-He drops it in the monkey theme park where Specter finds it, puts it on, and becomes an insane genius. After inventing about a million of them, his monkeys take advantage of the professor's new "Time Station" to travel through time and cause monkeys to rule the world. As luck would have it, right when Specter and his monkeys are about to travel through time, our Hero Spike and his friend Jake bust in and get sucked in too. Jake is lost somewhere and now Spike is tasked with retreiving all of the monkeys and finding Jake-Who has been captured and Brainwashed by Specter. There's not much storyline there.

The game features more than the standard "Find this amount of so-and-so to reach the next level" because in each level, there are alot of monkeys in there but you only need to capture some to get to the next level. After you beat the game, you can go back to the levels and capture the monkeys you missed thanks to a new gadget. You can also replay some levels period. Get all monkeys then beat specter again and then you get to see the good ending.

Overall, Ape Escape is quite an ingenius game. The dual Analog combat is executed perfectly (With the exception of the sling-back shooter), and Spike is one of those characters you'll find cute-He's like 10 and he sounds like he's 15, and Jake is his cooler rival-He's better than that loser Gary at least. Sure, the proffessor and Natalie will get a bit annoying if you're replaying it period (As in from scratch) because you can't skip Gadget training. All of its good points are enough to make this one of the best games of all time-And it defeated Pandemonium as my favourite Playstation platformer. 9.52/10

Pros (I'm ditching awards):
Great Dual-analog control
Funny monkey descriptions
Awesome replay value

Cons:
Very annoying proffessor (Prof: This is the annoying ray! You can shoot stuff with it and it'll become very annoying. But without training, it'll be too dangerous to move on.
Natalie: Proffessor! Why are you giving him THAT?!
Prof: I want this dang thing to stop firing at me! *Gets shot with the annoying ray* HEEY!!) {Note: That didn't happen, but it'd be very hillarious if it did}
A little too easy to die (Prof: This is the Suicide staff! You use it to commit suicide-I'd send you to the annoying gadget trainer, but why don't I show you how it works)
Hellatious rowboat controls
Somewhat bad graphics, even for its time.