The apes are back and this time they have brought their pants for more wild behaviour across the globe. Led by the most troublesome monkey of them all, Specter, the apes are out for global domination. Playing as Hikaru only you can stop the world becoming a 'planet of the apes'.Those cheeky monkeys are naughtier than ever, so bad in fact that they have managed to secure an 11+ age rating. It's up to you to teach them some manners in an epic quest to catch them all.
Asked by the Professor to transport a new consignment of experimental pants to Monkey Park, absent-minded Hikaru accidentally includes a batch of the last possible thing you should give a monkey, Peak-Point Helmets. It's like giving a can of gasoline to an arsonist: needless to say, the evil Specter and assorted monkey mates put them on quicker than you can say "Are you sure that's wise?"
Moments later, with brain-power enhanced, modesty covered – and resplendent in a series of ever-more bizarre costumes – the anarchic apes are off on the rampage once more. Specter himself, ever the highbrow master-criminal, declares war on all humans, determined to create a new world order where monkeys rule (probably with laws relating to bicycles with really small wheels); the others just go... well... bananas.
You, as Hikaru, have to dash around the world, sorting out the primate problem before your boss, the Professor, discovers what you've done.
To help you, you'll have a range of traditional monkey-catching gadgets, as well as several it may never have occurred to you to ask for. You'll be shooting water pistols, wielding clubs, hoops and nets, and throwing a superb new banana boomerang about with such abandon they'll probably try to introduce it as a demonstration event at the next Olympics.
You'll visit a range of exotic locations, like a Shaolin temple, a beach resort and even a moon base – so at least you'll have some nice memories afterwards. But in every one, you'll find unhelpfully perky primates, with more tricks up their sleeves than ever. To deal with them, you'll need to drive tanks, snowmobiles, pilot submarines, boats and even use your own robot for full-on robot fighting.
A new feature, the Gotcha Box, opens up sub-games and gives you hints, tips and items that will help you in the main game. Every ten Gotcha Chips you collect let you use the Box once: you'll get access to the fantastic mini-games, including Monkey Football, Dance Monkey Dance !, and Monkey Climber, as well as tickets to enter the movie or sound theatres. You'll find Monkey Books and Minor Enemy Books to help you in your task, and a host of weird and wonderful items that are as bizarre and strangely satisfying as ever.
The game is simply vast. There are 20 huge and beautifully designed levels, as well as eight boss levels, just in the first cycle of play. Once you finish the first cycle, you play through the entire game again with new areas to explore and new weapons to help you. A Time Attack mode lets you pit your skills on any single level; and once you've finished the second cycle you can even play all over again as the hero from the first Ape EscapeTM game, Kakeru. And, if life isn't complete without the opportunity to compete against your friends, you'll love the fantastic two-player game that lets you demonstrate your superior monkey catching skills over and over again.
An enormous, immersive and beautifully designed game that's gloriously unhinged, Ape Escape 2TM has great graphics, and massive helpings of fast-paced, original, and frankly sometimes just plain bizarre, gameplay. Every bit as crazy as the original game, it's the most fun you can have with a monkey with its pants on.