I have a soft spot in my heart for games starring anthropomorphic animal characters. Like the Naughty Dog Crash Bandicoot games? You bet I do. What about the Sly Cooper series? Definitely, one of my favorites.

Therefore, you can imagine my excitement when I first heard about Wideload Games’ party game, Hail to the Chimp. This past week, I decided to download the demo from the most recent North American PSN update.

Keep reading for my impressions of the cartoony title.

Upon first glance, the game reminded me of Power Stone 2 for the Dreamcast. It pits four players against one another in a free-for-all battle for animal kingdom supremacy. The game is presented as a political contest between 10 cutesy animal protagonists. The four “candidates” available in the demo were Santo (an armadillo), Ptolemy (a hippo), Bean (a sloth) and Murgatroyd (a jellyfish).

The demo had a very humorous tone. For instance, the main set of menus was presented as a news telecast, complete with a scrolling “news” ticker at the bottom of the screen. There were also victory speeches, concession speeches and negative campaign ads. The funniest speeches came from the unintelligible Murgatroyd.

The demo showed two gameplay modes: versus and campaign. Versus mode served as the instant action option. Campaign mode, presumably the game’s story mode, was not playable.

Once in versus mode, players must choose the length of their play. This is done by selecting a specific number of primaries (rounds). I chose the three-round option since it was the only one playable in the demo. Those who buy the retail version will be able to select 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 rounds.

For each round, players must select a game type they would like to play. The three game types available in the demo were Front-Runner, Stuff the Ballot and Yard Signs.

Front-Runner tasks players with collecting as many clams as they can on a given level. The player with the most clams at any one time is the leader. Whoever is the leader for a total time of two minutes is declared the winner. Note: the two minutes does not have to be consecutive.

In Stuff the Ballot, players must fill their ballot boxes with a total of 75 clams. As with Front-Runner, clams are strewn about the level and players must fight to collect them. Each player’s box is designated by two colored flags on its sides. Beware though, the location of the boxes changes throughout the match.

The third game type, Yard Signs, requires players to claim (punch) the largest quantity of signs for their campaign. Unmarked signs will periodically appear during the match and players must claim as many as they can before the end of the round. The signs remain up-for-grabs until they lock. Once a sign locks, it cannot change hands. You must have at least one clam to claim a sign.

While in versus mode, players can battle three computers, challenge friends locally or jump online to play against friends and strangers. By pressing triangle at the character select screen, you can set up a private or public online match. Both options allow you to invite friends to play. However, if you lack a sufficient number of friends, the game will fill the gaps with members from the online community. Sadly, I was not able to try an online match, as no one else seemed to be playing the demo.

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