TGS 06: Saru Get You: Piposaru Racer Hands-On

TOKYO--Earlier today, during a visit to the PlayStation Portable area of Sony's Tokyo Game Show booth, we had an opportunity to check out Saru Get You: Piposaru Racer for the first time. Although the game is only a little over two months away from its Japanese release, the demo being shown at TGS contains only a single circuit. After racing around that circuit a few times, though, we're pleased to report that the game looks really promising, and at least one monkey-loving GameSpot editor (who, me?) has already added it to his import list.

The first thing that needs to be said about Piposaru Racer is that the Ape Escape monkeys you take control of are not driving karts. Rather, they have car parts strapped to each of their limbs turning them into karts. The finished game will purportedly feature more than 40 different simian racers, but the only one we got to take the controls of today was a monkey that appeared to have cut a Formula One car or IndyCar into four and then strapped a piece onto each of its limbs.

Surprisingly, this unlikely-sounding vehicle handled extremely well, although it was prone to rolling onto two wheels anytime we took a corner at high speed. In the finished game, you'll be able to adjust your monkeys' limbs so that the kart's center of gravity and handling characteristics are altered, though we're not sure if you'll be able to do that on the fly, or if you'll simply choose a setup ahead of each race.

Predictably, since this is a kart racer of sorts, the track that we raced on was littered with speed boost pads and Mario-Kart-style pickups. Weapons and power-ups that we put to good use during our race included a rear-firing bomb, a banana that gets dangled in front of the monkey like a donkey's carrot to make it go faster, a disco ball that appeared to disorient opponents for a short time, and a Mario Kart "star" equivalent that made our monkey faster, bigger, and able to push opponents out of the way for a short time.

Saru Get You: Piposaru Racer is currently scheduled for release in Japan on December 7. We look forward to bringing you more information on the game as soon as it becomes available.