With typical Japanese inspired lunacy the story begins with Hikaru receiving a message from The Professor asking him to deliver a consignment of monkey pants to Monkey Park. A simple task but one that Hikaru manages to mess up. He somehow gets a quantity of intelligence-increasing Peak-Point helmets mixed in with the pants and when Spectre, the monkey leader puts one on he begins to get ideas above his station…! Big ideas…! Plans of world domination…! And it's up to Hikaru to track down the super-chimps and get them all back to the park.

Not an easy task, especially as the chimps are now smart, but as well as the standard ape catching equipment like clubs and nets APE ESCAPE 2 provides players with three great new multi-use contraptions. There's a strange banana-like boomerang that the apes find irresistible but can also be used to get out of reach objects: a powerful magnet and a very useful water gun, each of which is indispensable. There's also a fantastic collection of invaluable vehicles including tanks, boats, submarines, snowmobiles and a futuristic fighting robot.

Of course this wouldn't be a platform game is there were no items to collect and in APE ESCAPE 2 it's 'Gotcha Coins' that you need to get your hands on. For every 10 you collect you can have one go at the 'Gotcha Box' - an automatic dispenser of all things fantastic. It could spew out anything from silly jokes and horoscopes to photographs, useful items and even mini-games to play, so they are worth the extra effort to collect.

Completing this massive game isn't the end… Play it again with a magic scope that reveals previously hidden items and get your hands of the deadly 'Monkey Punch'. Play it for a third time and you become the hero of the first Ape Escape game, Spike.

Price: £39.99 for PS2.