Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Ape Escape 2

Written by Chris Reiter on August 20, 2003

Full Review: Monkey pee, monkey doo-doo.

Monkeys don't have fleas. They don't jump on you, or bite, or even slobber. Well, actually they do. But I am not here to tell you about monkeys! I am here to explain those damn, dirty, APES! Yes, apes. They run amok. Well, in Africa maybe, but here they're locked up in prison cells where they belong -- the zoo kind anyway. Yes, apes are a very ferocious breed of mammal. We people evolved from them you know, and they got the ugly end of the stick. So let me laugh at them in my mind quietly for a few seconds...yessir, good times. Anyway, as I was saying, apes are no good, except when it comes to Ubi Soft taking charge of Sony's leave of absence for the publishing rights to the Ape Escape 2 sequel: a game many fans of the original have been anticipating for years, and now can finally own the game to call their own.

Subject #1: Jimmy. Jimmy is a goofball assistant. He's sloppy, he's slow-witted, and most of all he's a slacker. These qualities of his especially show when the Professor (or the old dude in a white lab coat) leaves Jimmy in charge of shipping a bunch of boxes of monkey pants over to Monkey Park. Using the professor's latest gadget in instantaneous transportation, Jimmy does get the job done, only he manages to mix the wrong items in with the right ones. Subject #2: Specter. Specter is like no other ape you've ever met. He's one smart, super powerful, and sinister simian -- and his intentions are as follows: to invade the world with hundreds upon hundreds of apes. It was monkey helmets stored in the pant boxes. Monkey helmets! What do they do? They make these flea bags smart like us, except their only desire is to cause mischief around the globe. Teaming up with his best friend (who's ironically also an ape) Pipotchi and with guidance handed to him by the Professor's other assistant Natalie, it's now up to Jimmy to correct his mistakes by stopping Specter through the finding and the capturing of every single one of these furry primates on the loose before the world gets a little more...hairier.

Apes, monkeys, orangutans...whatever you want to call them, your primary mission in this innovative platform sequel is to get back 300 of these wily critters throughout several levels of wacky fun. But how is one boy able to make himself grab so many monkeys? With help from the Professor's collective gadgetry of course. Jimmy comes prepared with his own set of skills like running, jumping, shimmying, and tiptoeing through the ranks of every diversifying level and monkey type -- yet it's the added bonus of the Professor's tools that lend the game a conk on the head in and making it loony enough just to be fun. Consisting of essential devices from the original Ape Escape, like the stun club (a blue staff weapon for hammering away at buttons along the wall, breaking down doors, and even beating up monkeys in order to temporally put them out of commission while you're able to bag them up), the monkey net (a fishing net of sorts for raking in the goods), the super hoop (a hoop that when charged with energy, can let Jimmy dash around levels in a burst of speed for crashing and bashing into enemy apes), and introducing new types as well like the bananarang (shaped like a boomerang, this object can be thrown around to attract starving monkeys with its banana flavored scent) and the electro magnet (able to zap metal objects from a distance and reel them in for puzzle usage) all allow Jimmy to take advantage of any situation that has its riddles and its monkeys to suppress and then surpass.

But you can't expect animals to ever obey your commands. I mean, you can't just say, "You ape, die now!" This is why your furry foes of Ape Escape 2 use their own method of cunning trickery. There's not just one kind of ape to nab; there are several. And these guys don't stick in one place. Every ape is outfitted with varying stats -- some will be vigilant when seeing Jimmy or hearing his footsteps, some will be more resistant to his coming forth, some will be quicker to run away from him, and some are just hungrier than the rest. The only way to know which are which however, is with the Professor's one tool that knows everything: the monkey radar. What this machine does is enter a camera mode where you'll receive a view point on where any hidden ape is placed, what it can see, the shade of leggings they're wearing, how potent its statistics are, and what they're capable of doing if approached. Depending on the color type of their pant, the monkeys may use weapons against Jimmy (if apes are wearing black pants, they'll fire uzi rounds, or if they've got white pants on, it's bomb time for example), or they could just simply scratch. Sometimes they're too cowardly to attack, and may just end up running away. Whatever it is though, you've got to learn how to broaden Jimmy's horizons, thinking before acting (scoping each area out and putting together ways to get around its measurements), and acting without getting dead.

Monkeys aren't the only ones that have their own layout of statistical points though, as you do too. Jimmy's life is met with five cookies in all. Every time you receive any damage in the game, a cookie is broken in half, and then removed completely from the picture if any other harmful occurrences affect the life meter afterward. But because Jimmy's vincible, the game also lets you win jackets -- the way in which to process continues (or if Jimmy dies, he can be brought back to life with one). The jackets themselves unfortunately don't come cheap: you've got to earn them through the Professor's travel station gotcha box, or in other words a giant gumball machine that lets you pop in 10 coins (that can be gathered within each level) to receive a large spherical prize. Opening these trophy containers reveal something new each time though. At times you can win your jacket, but other times the ball will contain anything from concept art, music from Ape Escape 2's soundtrack, cookies for health, secret letters from Specter, short stories, comic strips, and even a grouping of minigames (ranging from a dance game that features a marionette monkey that you can control, to a soccer game where the teams comprise the apes you've contained thus far). Even though it's not a requirement to open these new prizes, it's the one part of the game that gives the initiative to actually want to find more gold coins or capture more missing monkeys through new and old levels that can be revisited time and time again.

Thinking the game's just got some silly monkeys to challenge however is the wrong idea here. Levels throw in an effective way to attempt to make your passage a not so easy one, with its shell shaped figures, flying tomatoes, candlesticks and pineapples, tank pigs that fire bombs, and even tricky traps where laser beams or swinging pendulums may halt your safety in trying to corner the monkeys that surround these deadly defenses. Luckily, the Professor's repertoire of tinker toys doesn't stop at the gadgets, as in some cases you'll end up running into vehicles inside levels from a snowmobile to surf snow drenched fields, a submarine to dive 20,000 leagues below for sunken missile attacks, or a massive replica robot in the likeness of the winged ape Pipotchi, which carries a spiked club for causing more damage bills than a weekend at Bernie's. Yet, once following every few levels, an enemy boss appears as well -- and these guys don't fool around. Every boss offers an interesting competition to be won, whether it's something like a monkey on a wheel that isn't allowed to cross red lights, but can surely defeat Jimmy with his quick maneuvering and collapsing platform arena, or a tub of lard that Jimmy can easily smack into a field of spikes, but in return can send shockwave and falling object attacks.

One of the very first games specifically designed to fully utilize the Dual Shock controller on the PlayStation, Ape Escape 2 does just that: a sequel to take advantage in showing off its multitalented analoginess prowess the whole way through. And with how Ape Escape 2's control scheme is laid out and the additional aid of control issues transported from inside levels by Natalie back at the hub, you'll be learning how to make Jimmy do the thing he does best (catch monkeys, duh) in no time. Gadgets, which are readily collected throughout the game's progressive stages, are assigned to the four face buttons to start with. Every time you press one of these buttons, you'll select your device in which to demonstrate. Once you've selected a tool, a twist of the right analog stick puts it into motion whereas the left analog can move Jimmy around, crawl when L3 is pressed down, or tiptoe if pushed forward ever so slightly. Lastly, the back buttons are mainly for support in jumping (R1 and R2), positioning the camera in front of Jimmy (L1), and entering into a first person view (L2). With its simplistic layout intact, Ape Escape 2 is really a no brainer for just about anyone to head into from the get-go.

Speaking of an easy to master game, Sony's made it so that the visuals aren't too complex on the eyes either. In a bad way? Not even. In a good way? Definitely. Character models for one thing aren't composed of the most elaborate designs with many of the ape types' appearances contributing the same nature in gray monkey helmets with flashing lights and different colored bottoms on -- except when it comes to "stranger" ones who wear knights' armor, 70's clothes and Afros, vampire costumes, a Santa suit, or the like -- and supportive enemy figures who only vary every so often. It's just that the structuring of these molds is without any texturing, and bear an unsophisticated assortment of same shapes and colors without depth. Jimmy's character is pretty much the only entity on the screen that has the most in-depth sense in style, though there's only one Jimmy, and even with that there's still not a whole lot more to look at.

Really, the game's animations deliver the most punch in this package. With all the spinning, swimming, shooting, soaring, striking, and other stuff Jimmy can accomplish, every move Jimmy makes affects his actions clean and clearly with neat smoke action rising from beneath his feet while running, jumping, or twirling in circles a lot of the time. Ape's apes too take off in a variety of ways from cutting the rug in their own little groove, hiding in fear from detection, on the lookout for danger, or freaking out and scampering away like little rodents from a blaze of fire when Jimmy makes his arrival. Shading sets in amongst the bright and cheery places, to the darker portions of each level too, dragging along with their puppets as the puppeteers form a balanced array of decent coloring. Another nice feature is how Ape Escape 2 almost resembles a cel-shaded blend in its course makeup. Almost. The levels themselves still aren't overly developed like the characters that inhabit them, but they stay true to the themes presented in each. In the snow level, snow drifts down atop lots of white trails through the mountainous terrain whilst giant snowballs rumble by; in the Venice level, water surrounds its middling buildings while gondolas make their rounds across the surface; and in the haunted house level, tombstones, coffins, and giant candles that move on their own terms takes place through the stage's configurations.

Mixed up into these same level variances lies the music that, while it doesn't tend to offer a whole lot like its graphical aspect in arms, it fits toward the exploration of such subject matter jurisdictions. All the songs, which are of a synthesized composition, key into places where for a grassy, meadow arena you'll find a lighter side to the game, wherein a karate dojo, the sounds shift into that of a traditional martial art movie-styled tune. Where there's music, there's also sound to be heard. With Ape Escape 2, you'll get an average fill of footsteps across breaking bridges, rocket blasts from a monkey in a mech, gushing water from a stream, the breaking of boxes when Jimmy slams into them, and of course monkeys screeching when Jimmy gets close to their fraidy cat behinds.

If you believe you've got voices in your head, that's because you do. Ape Escape 2's got its own cast of characters that speak throughout both story sequences and within the game itself (where available). Though the apes don't talk (only the bosses can), the few actual humans in the game (Jimmy, the Professor, and Natalie) do. Akin to any animated episode of Pokщmon (where the same actress that plays as Misty in the show, Rachel Lillis, actually steps in for the leading role of Jimmy), the script leads an antic and awkward feeling story, which does it good for the fun factor in this particular genre.