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Ape Escape/On the Loose[]
Specter was originally a white monkey that performed at the Monkey Park in a juggling act. Somehow a beta Peak Point Helmet ended up inside his trainer's tent and out of curiosity he put it on, gaining super intelligence and an evil will almost instantly. Specter escaped his tent before releasing the rest of the monkeys, causing a massive riot that followed him all the way to the Professor’s laboratory. Busting in, the monkeys under Specter’s control proceeded to tie up both the Professor and his granddaughter Natalie while inspecting how the time machine works.
It was then that Spike and Jake walked in accidentally. Specter ignored their presence and ordered the time machine to be activated. Within moments everyone except for Natalie and the Professor were dragged back in time to different periods.
Specter contacted Natalie and the Professor soon after finding out Spike was trying to damage his plans, and that the original creator of the monkey helmet was aiding Spike with gadgets.
Introducing himself, Specter told the three of his plans and threatened that if they didn’t back off, he would not hesitate to deal with them. Specter showed off his improved helmet and revealed that he had somehow brought Jake under his control, turning him into a mindless follower. When Spike finally caught up with Specter and Jake, the albino ignored the boy’s presence and teleported away in his Battle Cruiser, leaving a large robot with an ax behind to discard of Spike.
Spike survived and returned to the present, taking out the power reserve and the factory Specter had been using after being instructed by the AI Casi to do so. The Professor and Natalie had been kidnapped by Specter and were held there. Spike once again attempted to face Specter at the TV Tower the apes were using as a base, finally getting on Specter’s nerves. He attempted to kill Spike with the large mechanized Battle Cruiser he possessed but failed. Retreating once more he contacted Spike later on, telling him to come to the remodeled Monkey Park to find his friends before something “terrible” would happen.
After saving the Professor and Natalie from their death-trap filled rides, Spike fought with Jake a final time and freed him of Specter’s control. Now acknowledging that the ten-year-old was indeed a threat, Specter urged Spike to come to his castle for a “talk”. Soon after Spike arrived in the castle, the huge fortress lifted off of the ground and the security system activated, revealing a trial to reach Specter.
Despite the challenging security system and the dangerous passageways outside the castle Spike was forced to take, he eventually reached Specter’s throne room where the albino tried to brainwash Spike the same way he did Jake. This failed, and after a desperate battle with Spike, Specter finally caved and had a mental breakdown before teleporting away.
Nowhere to be found, Spike went back through the previous time periods to capture any monkeys he missed in order to make sure Specter could not muster up his forces in retaliation to try anything else. Once that was done, the Professor located Specter and Spike confronted him a final time.
For the only time in the entire series, the albino admitted to caring about his old trainer, although he still had no plans to return on his own and entered a final battle with Spike. Losing, he was finally captured and was last seen as a normal monkey being held by his trainer at the park.
If Spike got a Game Over and Specter showed up, he would taunt Spike for being defeated.
Ape Escape 2001[]
The storyline is a lot simpler compared to the original game. Specter has made all the monkeys' pants dirty and Spike has to wash them by vacuuming them off the apes.
Ape Escape 2[]
After Jimmy accidentally sends a group of Pipo Helmets along with Monkey Pants to the Park, Specter puts on a helmet once more and regains his intelligence and evil nature, commanding the monkeys to break out of the Park.
This time he sends his monkeys around the world to change it to his liking. He has also given special Vita-Z Bananas to a group of five special apes, now named The Freaky Monkey Five.
Jimmy's pet monkey Pipotchi is kidnapped as Specter plans to use the data in his redesigned Peak Point helmet and transfer it into a device called the "Lethargy Laser". Jimmy manages to save Pipotchi and capture almost all of the Freaky Monkey Five, except for Yellow Monkey. He is soon confronted in a monkey-controlled Military Base with Specter in a hi-tech gunship. Before the two can battle, however, Yellow Monkey reappears, now a giant due to overdosing on the Vita-Z Bananas. Specter flees from tbe scene and Jimmy captures Yellow Monkey.
Specter reveals his plans to use the Lethargy Laser to make all the humans in the world lose their will to fight, making it easier for him and his apes to take over the world. Jimmy tries to convince him otherwise, much like Spike before, but to no avail. Jimmy claims humans will never give up, and captures Specter.
Shortly afterwards, Specter escapes and goes into hiding on a secret base. Jimmy captures the monkeys he missed previously while Specter's hideout is searched for. When the Professor discovers Specter's base on the moon, Jimmy goes after him and he is captured once more.
Ape Escape: Pumped & Primed[]
Before the High-Tech Tournament, Specter sends out several Pipo Monkeys to participate in in tournament. He hypnotizes Jake again for good measure.
After the First Round ends, he send out Jake to personally train with monkeys so they can get better, while also dealing with Team Spike, Helga, and the Pipotrons.
After the Second Round ends, Specter appears in person with a walking Goliath named the Super Goliath and destroys a highway. He acknowledges the Pipo monkeys for performing well, and reveals that the monkeys entered the Tournament to prove to the world that monkeys with Pipo Helmets are smarter than humans. He is then attacked by Pipotron Yellow's laser beam, and decides to get rid of them all except for his monkeys. After Team Spike, Helga, and the Pipotrons beat Goliath, Specter retreats. Specter and Jake are later defeated in the Semi-Finals.
After the Pipotrons win the High-Tech Tournament, and give Nazo the Disk, Nazo turns the tournament into the Virus-Tech Tournament and traps everyone in it, including Specter. Nazo gives Specter the Disk, transforming him into Dark Specter, along with Battleship Goliath, reveling that the Disk can work on both humans and monkeys. After Dark Specter is defeated, he transforms back to normal, albeit collapsed.
After Team Spike, Helga, and the Pipotrons destroyed the Grid Core, the Virtual World returns back to normal, and Specter reawakens. Specter meets up with the Pipo Monkeys, and is very proud of them for beating him, despite under mind control. He also witnessed the Pipotrons disappeared from the Virtual World. Afterwards, he takes the Pipo Monkeys to get some bananas, much to his dismay.
Ape Escape 3[]
Specter as he appears in Ape Escape 3.
Specter, through an unexplained way, receives another Pipo helmet and begins broadcasting the hypnotic Specter TV everywhere in the world. When anyone sees their shows, they turn into "mindless couch potatoes." Specter regrouped the Freaky Monkey Five and gained a new human accomplice named Dr. Tomoki, who wanted revenge on mankind for mocking him. The twins Kei and Yumi, nephew and niece of Aki, set out to stop Specter when Spike, Jimmy, and the Professor were hypnotized by the mind-controlling television.
After Specter discovers Dr. Tomoki's secret of living with a Pipo Helmet stuck to his head, he laughs and mocks him, causing the twins to defend the doctor. This makes Tomoki leave Specter's side and join forces with the kids. With his help, they arrive at Specter's base in outer space to face him. Specter reveals his true plan of Twin Heavens, to send the giant metal hand of SARU-003 to chop the earth directly in half so that he can rule one half with his monkeys and let the humans fight over the other half. He had planned to give it to Tomoki up until his betrayal.
Kei and Yumi race against time to defeat Specter's new Goliath. Specter is caught, but not long after he and the Freaky Monkey Five are re-released by Pink Monkey who had escaped after her battle, making the twins have to capture them again. He captures the twins before they manage to capture him, and fights one-to-one with only his psychic powers and the head of his Goliath.
Ape Escape Million Monkeys[]
After a Pipotron had copied Specter's form, the false dictator took over the Monkey Army in a bid for world wide conquest on the orders of the Mystery Man. Specter was on vacation as this happened, but a few monkeys saw the false Specter on TV and alerted the real one to what was going on. Extremely angered by the impostor and realizing he could lose his entire army, Specter immediately returned to Tokyo to deal with the enemy. Along the way he encountered his false copy, Pipotron Meta, a Neo Pipotron capable of shapeshifting. After a brief encounter with Spike and his team, who were also trying to stop the threat, Specter dealt with Virus Casi, the rest of the Neo Pipotrons, mutated Blobs, and ended up eventually clearing his name as well as technically coming out as the good guy for once.
Ape Escape: SaruSaru Big Mission[]
Using a Nano-Cannon, Specter shrinks and kidnaps the Professor, Aki, Yumi, Kei and Jimmy, and shrinks the Laboratory with Spike and Natalie still inside of it. He gives his hostages for the Freaky Monkey Five to deal with along with nanochips to return the Lab back to normal. When the heroes reach up to Pink Monkey, she steals back the three nanochips they had obtained to prevent them from winning and sends them to Specter. Once all the heroes are rescued, he reveals his plan to use a special Giant Nano-Cannon to shrink the entire human population, leaving only the monkeys.
The Lab warps to him and be uses new Goliath-mech to try and destroy the heroes, ultimately failing. The heroes take back the nanochips and activate the Giant Nano-Cannon's self destruction before escaping. Specter escapes this somehow, and uses his original Nano-Cannon to shrink the lab again, planning to rebuild his Giant Nano-Cannon. He doesn't manage to make it differentiate between monkeys and humans anymore, however, so be engages the heroes in battle again to get the data he needs. He fails once more and his plans are stopped.
Ape Quest[]
Specter doesn't make any direct appearances in this game, though he makes multiple cameos throughout it, implying that the apes think of him with leader-like respect.
Ape Escape Academy and Ape Academy 2[]
The player stars as a Pipo Monkey enrolling into the Monkey Academy, raising its grades through a series of minigames in order to work for Specter.
In Academy 2, Specter invents a new card game popular among human and monkey alike. He makes a super special card after planning world domination and makes those who wish to own it enter a tournament. The winner will receive the card.
PlayStation Move: Ape Escape[]
Specter is the only previous character from the older games to return. He is noticeably very different from his usual form.
It's revealed he was a monkey planned to be sent into space. His trainer that worked with him, Haru, had began to cry as he was about to be sent off, which in turn upset him to the point of breaking out of his nice monkey persona, but they held his trainer back and refused to cancel this mission. He was sent up into space where he spent his time developing a hatred for humans.
He was soon rescued by descendants of other monkeys sent into space and taken to a special ship where he remains. Specter is seen to be very bitter and sad about his entire experience.
It's also revealed he dislikes the cold Space air. It's also worth noticing he takes on a more 'emo' appearance compared to before where he could usually be smirking or glaring.
When he's returned to earth, he meets his trainer, now an old woman, and begins to smile with her like in the past as they have a lot of catching-up to do.
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale[]
Specter appears as a non-playable hazard character in the crossover fighting game PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. He, along with Pipo Monkeys, appears in the Time Station stage based on the hub area from the original Ape Escape where he will constantly summon various creatures from various PlayStation franchises using the time portal. Among them are a Harpy from God of War III, a Lurker Shark from Jak and Daxter, a Vermin Truck from Twisted Metal, and the main stage hazard, the Satan Chimera from the Resistance series.
Specter also appears in the game as a downloadable minion.
Specter and the Pipo Monkeys, along with the Goliath, also appear in the Invasion stage.