The time machine beams you to yet another arcane environment

Two PlayStation firsts. An analogue-only game. And the most irritating, frustrating, hateful and utterly reprehensible game characters ever. Hooray!
Stephen Pierce

Watching Charlton Heston's face seep like a cracked latrine at the sight of a knackered Statue Of Liberty, one has to question the leathery faced thesp's manliness. Fancy getting so worked up over a few monkeys. Fancy being reduced to lady-weeping by hairy-handed gibbons! It does seem implausible. A few hours in the company of Ape Escape however, and you will understand his pain.

The game is a grab bag of all that is good about 3D, third-person, platform-vibed adventuring - including the fact that it will take your mind and wring out all reason and patience from it, leaving only bubbling temper. There are superb visuals, amusing, atmospheric sonics, a reasonable attempt to tie the fun together via a plot line and most impressively, an original play dynamic.

So what's it all about then? You're Spike, a frizzy-haired boy child. Due to a calamity with a time machine, an evil monkey called Spectre and his simian mates are scattered throughout time, on a mission to change history and dominate the planet. Needless to say it's down to ye, to sort the mess. This is achieved by gadding about the title's 17 levels - including jungle, beach, factory, amusement park, ice and mountain - utilising eight different gadgets and snaring the apes in your keep net.

But it is in initial play that Ape Escape's main gimmick becomes blindingly apparent. It's only playable via the Dual Shock pad. That is to say, don't buy it if you only have regular controllers. It won't work. That said, the game itself is perhaps reason enough to invest in some joysticked paddery.