Gex Part I: The 3DO Front Runner

Ah yes. Another series from my childhood. While I spent more time with the second and third games, the original Gex still holds a special place in my heart as it was the first 2D platformer that I ever really sat down with. Besides being a fun retro platformer, Gex also has an interesting history.

Basics Gex is a side scrolling platformer made, in house, by Crystal Dynamics for the 3DO. It was released in March 1995 for said system. The PlayStation and Saturn versions came out on December 1 1995 in Japan, and at some point in 1996 for everyone else. Instead of Crystal Dynamics, BMG Interactive published the game in Japan. The game was later ported to the PlayStation store; available for PSP, Vita, and PlayStation 3. Development Unusually for a game this old, I was able to find two surviving interviews. The first is with Lyle Hall, the creator, and the second is with a developer named Gregg Tavares. For Lyle Hall's interview, I left out anything not pertaining to the first Gex. If you are interested in reading the whole article, as always, it is down in the sources. As stated previously, Lyle Hall is the creator of Gex. He began working on the concept shortly after joining Crystal Dynamics in early 1993. His goal was to make "the best platform game ever" with the "coolest character" he could come up with. The game was designed to take advantage of the 3DO's capabilities and was even packaged with the console at one point.

Crystal Dynamics had a lot riding the success of the 3DO, which they thought guaranteed as they weren't worrying themselves with developing titles for other systems. They also acted as a publisher for 3DO games. After Gex and the fall of the 3DO, Hall reprised his role as producer for the other Gex games. After the lackluster 3DO release in October '93 and the resignation of two of the company's founders, things began looking shaky for Crystal Dynamics. It would seem that the 3DO was not the sure thing they initially thought it was. The biggest sticking point for the success of the system was the $700 launch price tag, which is $1240 in 2019 money.

Despite the 3DO's issues, Hall remained happy with the game itself, and with his game being shipped with 400,000 consoles, he was living his dream come true. Gex was on magazine covers and even got ported to the PC! For the developer Gregg Tavares, however, it's not a project he has fond memories of. For the small group of developers who worked on the game, it "was one of those projects from Hell." When he began working at Crystal Dynamics, he was told that Gex was going to be the next huge hit, as they were creating a Sonic-esque mascot for the 3DO. As we will see, that level of success never really happened.

The original concept for the game had the player maneuvering Gecko X, a stuntlizard, through levels based off of Hollywood studios. To Tavares, the levels never felt right due to the mixing of cartoon themes with realistic locations. They eventually scrapped the idea and changed the story to a gecko who gets sucked into a TV. There would be a villain controlling everything in this TV world and Gex would need to collect remotes in order to "change the channel" (i.e. move to new levels). This new concept was quickly picked up by the team.

When they began working on the first horror level, they quickly realized that developing a 32-bit game was going to be much more challenging than working with 16-bits. By Tavares' estimate each level needed about 6 times as much work put into it. It soon became clear that they needed a team larger than four people. Crystal Dynamics and their coffers thought otherwise. They were not about to change their process and saw the complaints as grumbling. At the very least, they did hire more artists. When June came around, and the game was less than 50% complete, Crystal Dynamics started cutting content. The first to go were the sci-fi levels, as their artwork and design was considered to be the least interesting. After all the cuts, they eventually realized they needed more than one programmer (Gregg) and hired several others.

Other frustrations were spurred on by sound issues, pictures of the developers being cut from the ending credits, and levels taken out against the developer's wills. This led one disgruntled programmer to put in a hidden message about their plight. He was, of course, fired after the code was found. After this incident, Crystal Dynamics began to run through the game's code with a fine toothed comb, further upsetting the small team.

When the game was released in March of 1995, the majority of the team wasn't happy with the final products. As Tavares states: "We had worked for 21 months of Hell with too few resources, too many things cut and all the other unforeseen problems that had plagued the product." Despite all these hang ups, the public liked the game, making the devs "feel alot better" about all their hard work. Previews

Besides the ad above, I have two previews to cover. They are in order by date, with the first preview from the May 1995 issue of GameFan. They begin by praising the graphics, calling them "impressive, especially for the many layers of parallax", something they thought couldn't be done on the 3DO. To the author, the game mechanics were equally impressive. Unusually for the time, you could stay in a level as long as you wanted in order to explore. They wrap up their preview by noting that Gex is the first time a video game character had been fully voiced. The GameFan reviewer thought it"...actually turned out to be cool." From what I can find, it was at least one of the first times there had been full voice acting for a main character. Impressive stuff, for sure. The second preview was written by an author for SF Gate. It begins with this wonderfully dated tagline: "Move over, Mario. So long, Sonic. Make room for Gex, the coolest character to slither onto a video game screen." The author notes that while the game itself has the potential to be a hit, the 3DO hadn't even sold a million units at the time of writing. The rest of the article covers Gex's anti-hero status and the gameplay. For all of it's appeal, though, they didn't think that Gex was going to talk people into buying a (as of 1995) $400 console. Reviews The first review we will cover was also by GameFan magazine. It's a bit of a strange one because it has three different people reviewing the game simultaneously. The first reviewer describes the game as having "many hours of platforming bliss, with high replay value as well", and gives the game a 92 out of 100 overall. The second reviewer felt that Gex was "one of the most impressive entries" for the 3DO. They also discuss the parallax scrolling that the 3DO is technically not capable of producing. They gave the game a 90. Lastly, the third reviewer. They gave the game a 95 and felt that the game was long, had high music quality, good humor, and found Gex to be a unique character. A short IGN article was written in November 1996 and reviewed the PlayStation version of Gex. The author notes that the game has some interesting features, but is exactly the same as the 3DO version. They felt that the humor worked well and the game mechanics were fun but ended up giving it a 6/10 overall, as there were no additional features for the PS port. I have to admit, it was difficult finding any sources for previews and reviews, mainly because no one bought a 3DO, not even reviewers. Luckily, we have some more modern reviews/news to look at. Modern Reception Of Gex, Push Square states that the game hasn't aged well, especially the humor and 'tude. It feels like the game is shouting for attention and to some extent, it was; note the early marketing and development. As for the game itself, they felt that the quality of graphics, audio, and voice dialogue was inconsistent. All that having been said, while the game hasn't aged like a fine wine, it is still worth playing on the PlayStation. They gave the game a 6 out of 10. Hardcore Gaming 101 wrote a retrospective in 2017, as part of a larger series on the franchise. While they felt it was partially self aware, the game eventually became the B-movie game it was emulating. They felt that the voice of Dana Gould allows for memorability and doesn't allow Gex to slowly slip into the void of other platform characters. Once it eventually gets annoying you can, thankfully, turn the voice off. As for the graphics, Gex looks well put together. The gameplay, on the other hand, can be difficult at times, mainly due to the save system. The worst part is this save system was only available for the 3DO release. Those playing on the PlayStation and Sega Saturn were stuck with the antiquated task of writing down passwords. Lastly, the dialogue was mostly removed for the Japanese release. What a boring version of this game! The wise-cracks are a large portion of the experience. Lastly, we have a bit of (dated) news. The Square Enix Collective, a crowd sourcing platform, allows for independent developers to pitch ideas that make use of Square's intellectual properties. As of this writing, people could pitch ideas relating to Fear Effect, Anachronox, and Gex. Square Enix, of course, would need to approve and green light any ideas. The good news is they aren't just looking for sequels, allowing for some creative freedom. While nothing had come of this four years later, it isn't out of the question. If anyone has some good ideas, please pitch them. I would love to see another Gex game. Conclusion While Gex hasn't aged super well, it is still a fun, ground breaking game in many ways. If anyone wants to board the train to nostalgia town, I recommend going to the PS Store and downloading Gex for the PS3, PS Vita, or PSP. Next month I'll be cover Gex: Enter the Gecko (Gex 64). Stay tuned!

1) Basics - https://www.mobygames.com/game/gex/mobyrank 2) Development - https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/103386/Playing_CatchUp_GEXs_Lyle_Hall.php - https://web.archive.org/web/20170919234819/https://games.greggman.com/game/gex/# 3) Previews - https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/A-Likable-Video-Game-Lizard-Gex-the-gecko-3035574.php (3DO)

- GameFan May 95 article 4) Reviews - https://www.ign.com/articles/1996/11/25/gex# - Gamefan_Vol_3_Issue_06_0015 5) Modern Reception

- https://www.gamespot.com/articles/square-enix-to-allow-revivals-of-fear-effect-gex-a/1100-6425356/?utm_campaign=gamespace&utm_content=footer&utm_medium=partner&utm_source=gamerankings - http://www.pushsquare.com/reviews/psone/gex - http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/gex/ - http://gbacklog.blogspot.com/2016/09/gex-1-1995-win95-os-promoted-by-gex.html