Ape Escape P

When I spend money buying an identical port of a game I already own on the original console just so that I can play it when out and about, you know it’s got to be a good game. _Ape Escape_ for the PS1 was an awesome game back when I played it with my brothers and sisters in ’99, and the fact that I can pick up what is essentially the same game and play it for a good few hours ten years later is proof of that. If I’m honest, a couple of decades from now I’ll probably be showing it to my own kids, or at least buying them the PS6 version so they can try it for themselves.

So what makes _Ape Escape P_ so great? The storyline, while not the weightiest of plots, is definitely imaginative. An old professor invents both an intelligence-enhancing helmet and a time-machine, and a white monkey called Spectre from the local zoo typically manages to get his hands on both. It’s your job – “Spike” – to clean up the ensuing mess, travelling through time to catch Spectre’s less-intelligent cohorts with your trusted monkey net before they can destroy history as we know it. The game doesn’t particularly worry about historical accuracy, but the concept is good enough to keep your attention; with only three levels per time period and many more time periods than that, the environment changes constantly. The professor helps you out too, inventing new gadgets as you go to compensate for the various geographical demands – a water net to catch swimming monkeys in water-based levels, a helicopter-like spinning blade for flying up to high ledges, etc. While the levels are fairly small (as is to be expected from a PS1 port), they are uniquely interesting; in one level monkeys may be seen riding around on the backs of mammoths, where in others they are running around inside the guts of a giant dinosaur called Dexter.

The monkeys themselves change too. There are broad categories (red-panted monkeys shoot you and throw bombs at you, black-panted monkeys run fast, etc.), but each individual monkey also has his/her own personality and miniature story, which are stored in your record of monkeys caught, accessible from the professor’s lab. Also accessible from this home base are the training grounds for the various gadgets and – more interestingly – a selection of mini-games that are earned by collecting special coins found in each level. _Ape Escape P_ is the game that keeps on giving – the mini-games (skiing, boxing, etc.) provide an entertaining break from chasing after squealing monkeys for hours on end, and the Ad Hoc capability even allows PSP owners to play them with friends.

I can only come up with one complaint with _Ape Escape P_, and that is the fact that as a PSP port, this version’s controls are not the best. _Ape Escape_ on the PS1 was the first game to actually require the dualshock controller, and it didn’t mess around. The L and R buttons were used for jumping, freeing up all four ‘shape’ buttons for switching between gadgets, the left stick was moved around for walking and pushed in for crawling, and even the right stick was used (a rare thing back then) for moving the gadgets around in whatever direction was necessary. The PSP has no right analogue stick, of course, so gadgets go in one direction only, and the X button is used for jumping instead, which means only three buttons left for weapon-switching. The drop from four to three quick-select gadgets leaves a far more difficult choice as to which ones to have ready to hand, although possibly only for a veteran _Ape Escape_ player set in her ways.

All things considered, when I’ve got _Ape Escape_ on the PS1 (and a PS1 console still knocking around somewhere), I have no real reason to complain about messy controls in the PSP version. If you can’t be bothered to crawl around in the attic searching for your old PS1, I highly recommend buying _Ape Escape P_; it’s just as fun now as it was back in the day (and far easier to fit in your pocket), and face it – chasing monkeys with a big net is never going to get old.