[Review] Ape Out

[[MC]Ronin[MC]]

Ape Out is a rhythm game developed by Gabe Cuzzillo and published by Devolver Digital. The game was released for Microsoft Windows and Nintendo Switch on February 28, 2019.

 

 

Premiere date: February 28, 2019
Engin: Unity
Genre: Beat 'em up
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Programmers: Bennett Foddy, Matt Boch, Gabe Kuzzilo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Mac OS

 

Ape Out is Hotline Miami on an intense diet of bananas and Buddy Rich records; a top-down simian splatterfest set to a superb soundtrack of jazzy drums and crashing cymbals, bundled into an extremely elegant and cool package. Blending elements of old-timey film and vinyl with a sharp, bold 2D aesthetic and bucketloads of blood, Ape Out is striking to look at and properly addictive to play.
The premise is simple: The apes are in, and they need to be out. That’s where we come in, steering these simians to an exciting escape through four short but regularly tough chapters, plus a fun epilogue with a slight twist. The location might be a shady research lab or a labyrinthine container ship and its nearby port, but the objective is constant: sprint to the exit, smash anything you can, and slaughter everyone in the way.
 

The controls are simple, too, a perfect match for Ape Out’s striking, minimalist art style. Outside of movement, there are just two actions in Ape Out – shove and grab. Shoving enemies will send them sailing until they drop to their deaths, smash into pulp against a wall, or slam into another person, liquefying both in a bloody explosion. Shove is also how the apes blow through plate glass and pound their way through some doors. The grab, meanwhile, is useful for procuring human shields, making use of their panicked trigger fingers to blast their comrades and to direct where exactly to throw your victims for maximum devastation. The occasional steel door will also need to be wrenched from its hinges. These two moves were all I needed to feel like a big hairy piledriver of primate rage, flinging hapless humans around as though they’re weightless.

So yes, Ape Out is uncomplicated. But that doesn’t mean it’s a pushover.
 

Chimpin’ Ain’t Easy
At its default difficulty, Ape Out is a steady challenge that I knocked out across a couple of afternoons. There were a couple of late levels that caused me some strife and bogged me down with what felt like a disproportionate amount of do-overs but, overall, I found it a fair and fun contest. Except for explosions, apes can survive two hits before dying to a third, so you can generally afford a mistake or two. Also, enemies don’t fire the millisecond you become visible to them; the apes have a small window to charge or dart back into cover.
It’s very satisfying peeling back the banana peel-like layers of what’s possible in Ape Out, despite the fact it only requires two buttons.
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Ape Out’s levels are largely procedurally generated, save for some key bottlenecks that remain the same regardless of the rest of the level changing around it. Layouts are generally just a grab-bag of same-same rooms, hallways, and wide-open spaces cobbled together in slightly different ways, but there’s enough variation that it’s an effective way to make every area feel dangerous, regardless of how many times it’s been played. There’s no one quick or safe route through a level. There are, however, a few fun scripted blitzes through hallways and corridors of enemy-filled elevators that everybody will encounter, and I would’ve liked to experience more of these memorable moments I could pin on a piece of specific, deliberate piece of level design.
 

One thing I particularly admire about Ape Out is how tactics and takedown methods only reveal themselves via trial-and-error, or by accidentally stumbling into them on the first go. Factors like how many times the different sorts of enemies will fire their weapons after being grabbed, or which ones will run if you chase them and which ones will stand their ground can be cleverly exploited and countered once you know their habits. These tricks revealed themselves to me over time in a satisfying way: I discovered almost instantly I could turn enemies into a red stain by slamming open a container door if they were standing near, but I’d played for hours before I realised I could throw back bombs. It’s very satisfying peeling back the banana peel-like layers of what’s possible in Ape Out, despite the fact it only requires two buttons.
 

 

Aped Crusader
Arcade Mode ramps up the difficulty considerably, adding a strict time limit to each level and sending you right back to the beginning of the whole chapter if and when your ape is killed. There’s also a harder setting for the standard game which speeds up enemies and adds a lot more of them. It’s noticeably trickier and I had to play it at a slower pace than the standard difficulty, taking more care not to charge into areas I could be swamped in. I like Ape Out at its regular difficulty more, though, because I think the pace is better.
Everything going on in the background is a freestyle drum solo timed with your actions and the atmosphere it creates is brilliant.
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I also like the way Ape Out’s huge walls stretch all the way out of screen, looming high over the vibrant orange apes and bright-red blood splatters, adding depth along the Z-axis and obscuring the level ahead. It adds a layer of pressure you don’t necessarily get in other top-down games like Hotline Miami or The Hong Kong Massacre, where you can see into upcoming rooms and spaces and prepare to deal with enemies who can’t see you yet. I like everything about the presentation, to be honest, from the cue marks that flicker in the right-hand upper corner at the halfway point in each chapter, like I have some kind of personal projectionist changing film reels in the background for me, to the way the level names burst onto the screen in time with the music.

And the music? God, it’s good. Each of the chapters has its own drumming style and tempo, which ramps up dynamically as the pace of your rampage increases, and the death of every enemy is punctuated with a cymbal smash or some kind of atonal squeak subbing in as a desperate scream before they explode. Everything going on in the background is a freestyle drum solo timed with your actions and the atmosphere it creates is brilliant.

Verdict
Ape Out is an intoxicating fusion of percussion and destruction that oozes style from every angle. Its procedurally built levels tend to blend into one another a bit but its bloody rampages are filled with nuance. Beneath the simple controls is depth that’s kept me returning for days after successfully completing the epilogue. Gorgeous and compulsive, if this ’50s-inspired, jazz-fueled jaunt is the future of gorilla warfare, the team behind Ape Out can make a monkey out of me anytime.