I gotta admit, my backlog of games I want to play ran out a while ago. Sure there’s a few titles on there that I could catch up on but most of them have some barrier to entry (looking at you, Metro Exodus) which I can’t be arsed getting around. So I’m left to scour the Steam releases each week, hoping to see something that catches my eye. Unfortunately the pickings have been slim and so I’ve resorted to playing things that are somewhat interesting but usually not what I’d typically find myself playing. APE OUT, whilst having most of the trappings that you’d usually assume would be right up my alley, was just missing that extra something to keep me coming back. The concept and execution are both extremely well done however so it’s not for a lack of craftsmanship, more it just doesn’t have the mechanics I’d seek out in this kind of game.

You’re an ape in a laboratory and you’ve decided it’s time to get out. Of course the lab can’t have what appears to be a super-intelligent ape running about the shop so they’ll do anything they can to stop you. Of course you’re quite a bit bigger than them and can easily paint the walls with their corpses should they get in your way. Your goal is simple: find a way to escape without getting shot to bits. All this happens whilst a wild jazz soundtrack plays in the background.

Visually APE OUT is very striking with its top down perspective, lack of texturing and use of vibrant colouring. Whilst this does make it rather easy to distinguish foes from furniture the top down perspective could use a little work as quite often pillars get in your way when it feels like they shouldn’t. There has been a lot of attention given to making the visuals feel as chaotic as the background track with numerous overlays, changing colours and other weird and wonderful VFX making for a kind of visual bonanza I haven’t really come across before. I honestly would expect no less from the crazed mind of the great Bennett Foddy (you know, the one behind QWOP and Getting Over It).

The soundtrack deserves its own mention as it’s a reactive mish mash of jazz percussion. Each playthrough will have a slightly different track due to the generative nature of the backing track, even down to things like events on screen driving which part of a drum kit gets played. Each of the albums has its own theme so all those different samples do work together to produce something coherent but it’s still very chaotic. I’m not really a fan of jazz but I certainly appreciated the effort that went into building up the engine that drove APE OUT’s wild soudtrack.

The objective of each level is simple: just get to the other end. You’ll be met with a wide variety of enemies, themed to the current album you’re playing. The levels themselves aren’t particularly big but it’s never going to be as simple as just legging it from one side to another. Curiously you can do it without killing a single person as there’s an achievement to that effect. How you’d do that for some sections is beyond me though as there’s situations where I couldn’t see an easy route around flattening a few folks.

For the most part the combat feels fair as the enemies telegraph their moves and the AI isn’t particularly smart in how it approaches you. Of course when you’re cornered by more than a couple of them things start to get real tricky fast and many of the special types of enemies are designed to make simply crushing everyone more challenging than finding a way around them. Even with the short levels though I found the enemies to get repetitive pretty fast and I think that’s probably what made me give up in the end. I mean sure, part of it was also the difficulty of it, but since there’s no real progression system or anything else to keep you coming back (bar the new levels) I didn’t really feel like the challenge was worth it.

APE OUT is a finely crafted game that I just didn’t find myself enjoying all that much. The visuals, soundtrack and mechanics are all on point, delivering the exact game experience that it set out to achieve. However I felt that it was mostly a game for the speedrunner/Twitch crowd, something that people would love to watch but not necessarily play themselves. That’s why after just a paltry 36 minutes with it I decided to call it quits, lest I give this game a score that’s much further below it’s true value. If you favour that kind of reaction based, beat ’em up gameplay then you’ll surely enjoy APE OUT but for me it just didn’t hit the mark.

Rating: 7.0/10

APE OUT is available on PC and Nintendo Switch right now for $21.50. Game was played on the PC with a total of 36 minutes play time and 4% of the achievements unlocked.

About the Author

David Klemke

David is an avid gamer and technology enthusiast in Australia. He got his first taste for both of those passions when his father, a radio engineer from the University of Melbourne, gave him an old DOS box to play games on.

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