Gaming Target - Game Boy: Planet of the Apes

Written by Kyle Williams on April 23, 2002

Review: "...those damned dirty apes."

Have you ever noticed that every movie has its own videogame? Heck, it even goes beyond movies. Television classics like Scooby-Doo are all over the console market and are surrounded by the likes of the Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lab, and Spongebob Squarepants. It is amazing just how far a license can be stretched in order to make another game. Don't get me wrong, not all licensed titles are a waste of time. The recent Spider-Man games from Activision are a prime example of a license being put to good use. However, the license market can be a real crap shoot from the gamers point of view with just as many misses out there as there are hits. Planet of the Apes from Ubi Soft and Torus Games is one of those licensed games that is really hard to place into one of those categories.

At its very heart, Planet of the Apes for the Game Boy Advance is a take on the classic Ape movies Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Through cutscenes, the story is told of Ben, an ANSA astronaut that is sent out to try and locate Colonal Taylor, his downed compatriot. The story does an okay job of capturing the feel of the classic films (the dialog is impressively true to the flicks), but in general seems to be a bit uninspired. Still, these still-frame cutscenes are what keeps the game going. The action gets to be truly stale after about ten minutes but following the progression of the story is worth the few hours it will take to beat the game. Torus was even nice enough to reward the patient and persistent with a twist ending at the end of the journey. The story would have worked well as a comic book adaptation of the films.

As I mentioned before, the action in Planet of the Apes gets old quick. The level progression is simply a matter of climb, shoot, jump. In and of itself, this is not a bad thing. The problem is that you spend the entire game running, shooting, and jumping. There is no variety to the gameplay whatsoever, not even one simple puzzle to solve. Sure, there are monkeys (Apes hate it when you call them monkeys), snakes, and bears to kill, but they are all pretty dumb and can all be snuck up on and stabbed or shot without there ever being a threat to your life-bar. On the upside, the game looks great and Ben is animated extremely well. The background art in this game is fantastic and is a great example that other developers should learn from. Things are generally bright and well structured and, as a testament to the art department, it is easy to separate the ledges from the background. However, good graphics don't help the action to pick up and the adrenaline never gets flowing. Add this to the fact that the levels are as linear as they come and you have a largely forgettable experience.

The most frustrating thing about Planet of the Apes is the sheer monotony of the gameplay. Every level is filled with 10 tiny flags that have been left behind by Colonel Taylor. If you gather all of these flags, you are rewarded with a health pack so that you can tend to your monkey inflicted wounds. The flags aren't even all that hard to find as there is absolutely no exploration to be found in the levels. Adding to the experience is a soundtrack that will drive you insane. It isn't so bad at first but it never (ever) changes and you can't turn off just the music; the sound effects go with it. I almost liked the music, but after falling off of the same ledge five times, collecting the same six flags five times, and hearing the same music (in the same place) five times, I was ready to be done with it.