Piposaru Academia: Dossari! Sarugee Daizenshuu Hands-On

TOKYO--Those Ape Escape monkeys are going to be busier than ever over the next 12 months. They're going out of their way to make Solid Snake's life more difficult in Metal Gear Solid 3, but they're also starring in two new PSP games. Saru Get You P! is the more traditional platform-style outing, but Sony is also showing a new minigame collection featuring the crazy little simians.

Piposaru Academia: Dossari!! Sarugee Daizenshuu will offer a handful of different minigames to play, alone or with a friend. The games involved range from some sort of ape-oriented trivia quiz, to a variant of dodgeball, to a version of rock-paper-scissors that spins the old hand game into some sort of cross between Pong and a shooter.

The interesting twist is that, much like Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo for the Game Boy Advance, you'll be able to have two players play the game simultaneously on one PSP. For example, the rock-paper-scissors game uses three buttons, one for each hand motion. The player on the right side can use three of the face buttons, while another player can hold the other side of the PSP and use the D pad for input. Just make sure you figure out who will let go and who will hold on when you're done--that screen looks like it'd be expensive to replace.

Piposaru Academia looks pretty good, but given the basic, one-screen nature of the minigames, the graphics aren't exactly mind-blowing. Still, if the rest of the minigames are as interesting as the three on display, Piposaru Academia should be a pretty interesting multiplayer diversion for PSP owners.

For more updates, be sure to check GameSpot's coverage of Tokyo Game Show 2004.