In recent years, games designers are finally coming around to the fact that monkeys are funny and that we as gamers need them for our own evil wishes. Control them, shoot them, roll them around and finally catch them.
Ape Escape 3 starts with the Evil White Monkey and his evil monkey minions taking over TV land. Through this he is turning all of the viewers into zombies. Whatever channel you watch, monkeys are acting out their human counterparts roles. OK so not to bad so far, in fact you probably would not noticed much difference with what’s on the box recently. But our heroes decide to find the source of these broadcasts and stop the White Monkeys plans for world domination. Initially armed with just a net, you venture out to catch all of those pesky monkeys on the TV and film sets to save the world and more importantly, bring normality back to TV.
The graphics are simply spot on. They have a great solid cartoon look which suits the style of the game.
The analogue stick allows for 360 control of your character and the net separately, and you will need to use these skill as there are times when you are trying to capture 5 monkeys in a room, and these guys don’t let up easily The levels are based on TV and film sets, for example a ninja show or quiz show and each one has an excellent sense of humour. Nothing is safe from a monkey parody, Planet of the Apes, Spiderman, fairy tales and horror films. There is something very amusing about chasing after a monkey dressed as their human counter parts like Superman and The Terminator or just in a dress and blonde wig.
Each level is dotted with robot enemies that shoot and fire flames at you and are no real trouble to get past, but when you have these and a few monkeys running around the screen it does get a little more challenging. The platform side of the game is simple enough, and not really doing anything new to the genre, but they do have special powers which help you solve some puzzles on later levels, like wall walking and gliding.
There are plenty of levels and 400 monkeys spread throughout them, with some specific boss levels in between. To just play through the levels once will take around 5 hours but this is just scratching the surface. Once you have collected all of the monkey and coins on the levels you can start purchasing items from the shops. There are things like photos to collect, videos, music and alternative items for your special powers. But that’s not all, there is also a film creator where you can kill time making a monkey movie using the monkeys you have captured, mini-car racing game, one on one monkey beat-em up and finally a metal gear acid parody, Mesal Gear, in which your monkey hero has to save the world and Solid Snake.
Though this game looks slightly childish, do not be fooled, its almost like calling The Simpsons a kids programme because it’s a cartoon. The humour and gameplay are there for all ages and the sheer amount of collectables and extras on offer will keep you entertained for along time.
