Ape Escape - On this day

When we talk about platformers on the original PlayStation, Crash, Spyro, Rayman, Tomba, Gex immediately come to the fore, but Ape Escape, a game that came out exactly on this day exactly 22 years ago, definitely deserves to join this series.

Ape Escape is remembered as the first game to require the use of analog sticks on a controller. The first controller for the PlayStation console was not DualShock, and 3D games most often placed the camera controls on the top buttons of the controller. But that changed with the arrival of Ape Escape, a 3D platformer that boldly unveiled a new control scheme.

The premise was great - the experimental monkeys have gone back in time and are threatening to remake it. A boy named Spike is given the task of stopping them by finding them and catching them in his “time network” and sending them back to the present. This task of hunting monkeys was perfectly transferred to the gameplay itself, with the traditional collection of coins for the bonus game of skiing, shooting, and boxing.

Ape Escape received very good, sometimes great reviews, which enabled numerous sequels, spin-off games and party titles. Monkeys have also appeared as guest characters in several other games, including the cult Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.