After spending the better part of the week dredging through depths of depravity with Faith, I needed a bit of a palate cleanser. Ape Out fits the bill perfectly - a short but action-packed title with style to spare.

In Ape Out, you play, quite fittingly, as an ape (a gorilla, to be exact), trying to escape whichever structure you're currently held captive in - a research lab, a high-rise, an army camp, and a cargo ship, respectively. To this end, you'll run around each level searching for an exit and use your mighty gorilla strength to grab or yeet any armed thugs standing in your way.

With this kind of practically non-existent story and simplistic gameplay, you would assume the focus would be on the presentation, and you'd be absolutely right. The game is rendered in what I can best describe as an exaggerated version of a top-down perspective, with highly stylized shapes and bold colors. The whole thing is set to a percussion-heavy free jazz soundtrack that slows down and picks up in sync with the action on the screen.

This is where Ape Out is at its best - once you get into that flow state, the game turns into a mesmerizing dance of ultraviolence accompanied by a frenetic and driving jazz score. Unfortunately, moments like this aren't as common as one might hope.

Ape Out belongs to that category of games I like to call "frustration simulators" - you'll die often, but restarting the current level is only a click away. The issue is that every time you restart, the whole level is randomly generated from scratch, including obstacles and enemy placement.

This effectively prevents you from learning the level layout, making you rely purely on reflexes and luck of the draw. I can't begin to describe how annoying it is to make it through the whole level by the skin of your teeth, only to be ambushed near the end by a random guy with a rocket launcher - it took you half a second too long to close the distance and… well, that's all she wrote.

If you're cool with occasionally unfair RNG, I would definitely recommend Ape Out. In just under 2 hours of play time, it really is an experience, and one you probably haven't seen before.

KAWGA

Simply amazing