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Planet of the Apes Review
Chris Leyton
00/12/0000
It`s not all good, but it`s not all bad...
When the latest Ubisoft package dropped through the door, there were screams of delight amidst groans of despair. Finally we had received the long-awaited Evil Twin, and yet in the same package was Planet of the Apes, a title that had only been announced a few weeks previously. This kind of hush-hush approach and media blackout usually indicates a bit of a stinker in the works, so it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I took both discs and began installing it.
The game has been in development for quite some time, debuting at E3 2000 on Dreamcast, PC and Playstation. Back then the Dreamcast build was looking quite impressive, with a nice blend of stealth play and combat, however the fall of Sega's machine allowed the developers to concentrate on the PC version that we have here.
PotA is yet another 3D action/adventure title set in the same mould as Tomb Raider and others of that ilk. The game puts you in the shoes of Ulysses, an astronaut whose spaceship has unfortunately crash-landed on the dreaded Planet of the Apes 1000 years in the future. It's your aim to get off the apes planet... or our planet. Whilst taking strong elements from the films (Charlton Heston not Mark Wahlberg) it does offer it's own unique story, that fans of the series will want to check out.
To say I was pleasantly surprised by PotA would be a considerable understatement, whilst not bringing any new ideas to the genre, it is a well refined title that impresses with tight controls and good gameplay. Starting out in a cell without any items or weapons, you must solve the puzzles to progress through the game. At this early stage it pays off to take a sneak-and-peak approach, after all, would you like to square up to a 9ft gorilla with just your bare fists, didn't think so. As you progress through the game you'll gain access to weapons, which gives you some scope to kick some simian butt. The developers have obviously put in the time on the combat issue, once an enemy spies you he'll give chase, a simple button press activates a locked camera, so you can rotate around the enemy, and land those punches accurately. It's a nice combat system that works well and eclipses that seen on many other adventure titles, whilst the closed camera also allows for some nice cinematic moments. Enemy AI seems to be sufficiently high, I was quite surprised to find my attacker still pursuing me after performing some incredible maneuvers to outwit the beast, on this showing I wasn't entirely sure who had evolved from whom. Ultimately you'll progress further into the game by thinking, combat plays an important role, however it is not the dominant element of the game, more as a means of defense. Consider the enemies as obstacles that you must outwit, be it by playing tricks, running, hiding or just squaring up to the brute.
Unfortunately PotA is purely primitive in the visual stakes. Textures are drab with very little detail and variety between them, the character models fair slightly better, with some nice animation on the main character. There's also some nice lighting effects and real-time shadow effects, unfortunately it's all ruined by the monotonous tone of the environments and the occasionally suspect frame-rate, the game has been in development for along time and unfortunately it's showing this.
