Sony is filling a gap in the range after a long time: While Nintendo disciples are celebrating a party with Mario for the sixth time, there hasn’t been a reasonable parlor game of this type on the PS2 to date. Since there is no comparable prominent Sony mascot as a front figure, the Ape Escape-Primate horde unpacked a weird alternative. And because the in-house USB camera has proven to be family-friendly, the EyeToy is of course used right away – that’s it Monkey Mania.
As is customary in the genre, you start with up to three buddies or CPU opponents in a virtual board game: Instead of dice, a roulette wheel is used to determine the number of squares that the primate of your choice advances. Depending on the target symbol, you harvest or lose ‘Pipo’ symbols that count as currency, buy items and set traps for others or complete one of around 50 mini-games.
The latter are all tailored to the use of the EyeToy and are sometimes completed one after the other, sometimes simultaneously – the spectrum ranges from simple reaction tests to tricky balance tasks.
