Apes, apes, they're everywhere! Sony's Ape Escape has you running around different eras in order to capture a bunch of silly monkeys who were sent back in time to take over the Earth. As Spike, it's your responsibility to follow these monkeys and capture them. If you capture enough monkeys, you'll advance to new stages and new eras.

Capturing monkeys is simple, but enjoyable. Here's a typical scenario: You'll be exploring the sands of a peaceful beach...and there...you see a monkey! The cute little monkey is nestled in the sand, building a castle, looking happy in a way that only monkeys do. So you stealthily crawl towards him, inching your way ever so closer. He spots you, jumps and lets out a shriek! Now you get up and run towards him. The monkey is scrambling away, throwing banana peels in your path. You inch closer and closer, to where you can just reach him with your stun club, and BAM! You whip-out your time-net and catch him, sending him back to the present. 

It's this "capture the monkey" gameplay that creates most of the charm of Ape Escape. It feels so satisfying when you catch one, because they're elusive. What makes the chases even better is how intelligently the monkeys react. If possible, they'll climb a tree, dive into a body of water, or hide in a beehive. You can still get them, but their maneuvering makes it that much more difficult. Trying to catch the apes is like playing hide-and-go-seek, and it's as much fun as a barrel of monkeys. 

Yet netting monkeys is only half the fun of Ape Escape. The rest of the game involves solving puzzles to access new areas of a level, which lead to more monkeys. To solve puzzles, you'll have to use a variety of gadgets. For example, you'll need the chopper to access high platforms, and you'll need the slingshot to hit an unreachable door-switch. Some puzzles don't require gadgets. Instead, they require a keen eye or an intelligent brain, such as noticing that the bottom of a pit contains another area of the level. The puzzle design is so good and there's so much variety in the puzzles that it rivals what Miyamoto has done for Nintendo. It gives Ape Escape depth and challenge based on intellect, which is too often missing in today's games.

To execute all of the various actions and gadgets, every single button on the Dual Shock controller is used, including ones that most people don't even know exist, like the L3 and R3 buttons, activated by pushing down on the left or right analog stick. You'll use the left stick to move, the right stick to use a gadget in a specific direction, the d-pad to change the camera, the "shape" buttons to select a gadget…etc…etc. Having to use so many buttons takes a little getting used to. Fortunately, the game provides plenty of training sessions which are effective in showing you how to properly use your controls and your new gadgets. Ape Escape is the first title to use every function of the Dual Shock, and it pulls it off with an unbelievable efficiency and ease-of-use.

While Ape Escape pushes the controller to its limits, it also pushes the graphics to the PlayStation's limits. You'll believe that you're playing on a Nintendo 64 when you see how well objects fade in and fade out of the background, and how nothing disappears until it is far off in the distance. Some characters, like the tortoise in the second stage, are amazingly detailed and seamless. Everything is colorful and moves at a silky-smooth frame rate. Overall, Ape Escape's graphics are breathtaking, often leading you to question if you're playing a game or if you're trekking through another world.

The only negative aspect of Ape Escape is its music. At times it's atmospheric and moving. Other times, it sounds like a synthesized, cartoony mess. The music is appropriate for this type of game, but some of the tracks are just a little too annoying.

When all is said and done, Ape Escape will be remembered as a title that brought life back to platform gaming. The concept and puzzle design is some of the best seen since the Super Nintendo era. Throw in three mini-games that could be considered separate games in their own right, and a bunch of adorable monkeys that you'll want to take home and play with, and you have the ingredients for a title which is one of the best released for the PlayStation this year.