Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko | Review

Gex: Deep Cover Gecko is the third and final game in the Gex series of games. The first game (simply titled 'Gex') is a 2D platformer, however, with the sequel, Gex made the jump from 2D to 3D. Both the 2D original and 3D sequels recieved fairly good reviews and are considered to be quite decent platformers. Not to the extent of the Super Mario or Crash Bandicoot series, but pretty decent nonetheless. All the Gex games were developed by Crystal Dynamics who were eventually bought by Eidos Interactive who were then bought by Square Enix. So the company that made Gex are technically still around today. only no longer under the name Crystal Dynamics and no longer developing Gex games (and I doubt any of the original team work at Square Enix anymore).

I have actually never played Gex or Gex: Enter the Gecko (the second game in the series), so I can't give my own opinion on them. However I have played Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko, so I thought I would give the game a revisit and see if it's a forgotten gem, or if it's been forgotten for good reason.

The way Gex: Deep Cover Gecko is set out is very similar to the way in which Super Mario 64 is structured. You start in a open hub area which is a level in its own right and in this hub area are portals to other levels each with their own setting and theme. In these levels you are given specific objectives to complete which will earn you TV remotes which allow you to unlock more levels and progress in the game. By exploring the levels further you can find coinflys (which are the equivalent of coins in Super Mario 64) and hand prints. The coinflys will give you an extra life upon collecting 50 of them, but upon collecting 100 of them (which means getting all of them in the level) you get given an extra remote. The hand prints give you a health boost when you get a certain number of them, making them important for the later levels where you'll be losing more health and giving you an incentive to go back and explore earlier levels.

You know he's cool if he's wearing shades, looking to the side and leaning on a snowboard.

There are 3 objectives in each level (meaning you can get a total of 4 remotes in each level) and these objectives normally involve getting to a certain point in the level, finding a set amount of hidden objects or by doing something a bit more specific to a certain level. Although this might seem a bit repetitive, the game does a really good job of keeping things fresh. Even though an objective in a level might be to find something, you also need to interact with whatever it is you're looking for. To explain this a bit better I'll use an example. In the Egyptian themed level 'Tut TV', one objective is to find three staffs. Simple enough, but each staff is hidden and guarded by a tough enemy, after defeating the enemies and getting the staffs it unlocks a hidden area where you actually find the remote. This keeps you intrigued because you want to know what collecting the objects will do in each level as opposed to just collecting things for the sake of it.

Gex: Deep Cover Gecko has terrible boss levels, which is very unusual for a platformer. Normally upon reaching a certain point in the game you would be confronted with a boss who tests all the skills you have learned up to that point, but that doesn't happen. The first boss is a wrestler (a parody of The Rock) who can be defeated literally by running in circles to dodge his attacks and tapping the attack button straight after his attack. The second boss is a Wizard of Oz parody which is very very simple and for that late into the game should be a lot harder. Not only are these bosses very uninspired and easy but they also has no build up whatsoever. I had completely forgot bosses were even in the game until I played through it again. This is a complete contrast to the actual levels in the game which are quite memorable. It would have been nice to have had a short cutscene play at the start of reaching a certain point in each hub world section just to build the bosses up a bit more. I honestly think the game would have benefited from not having bosses at all as opposed to awful ones like these.

The last boss, like the ones before him comes out of nowhere (aside from a few mentions of him in the cutscenes which play after each mission). Because he's never seen or hardly mentioned in the game the boss seems very anti-climactic and a very disappointing end to the game. I do have to say however that this boss is the best in the game and even has a short section before it which tests your platforming ability by making you traverse moving platforms in space. Maybe if the other bosses would have had a short platforming section before the fight itself the whole thing would have been slightly better.

Seriously, this boss looks horrific... Why didn't they build it up more throughout the game? This is the only time in the game you see it and it's the final section of the game.

But the absolute worst thing about Gex: Deep Cover Gecko is that you can't get all of the remotes in a level in one run. There have been times where I've been looking for the coinflys and done all three of remote objectives but only been able to actually get one of the remotes because getting one forces you out of the level. This doesn't make sense. I've already hit the criteria for unlocking all three remotes but I have to get one, exit the level and then play through the level another two times hitting the same criteria I've already hit in the last play through to get all the remotes. This isn't helped by how big and maze-like some of the levels can be.

This is also one of my major problems with Super Mario 64, because it's the exact same thing only you replace remotes with stars. However in Super Mario 64, at least the levels sometimes change depending on which star you are aiming to get (an example being in Jolly Roger Bay, in which a ship is sometimes floating on water and it is sometimes sunk underwater depending on which star you're going for). But in Gex: Deep Cover Gecko, the levels don't change, you can achieve every objective in one playthrough, but you can't actually get all the remotes for doing the objectives, you have to play through each level at least 3 times, which becomes boring and completely ruins the flow of the game.

Congratulations for wasting half an hour of life on each level because you have to do it three whole times!

Having talked about some of the things the game doesn't do well, lets now talk about what it does do well (for the most part). Level design. The levels are all drastically different to each other visually and within each level is a really good amount of detail and gameplay variety. Most levels offer a short vehicle section and some are more short and gimmicky while others are longer and more platform heavy. It also uses themes which are not common at all in platformers like a murder mystery, war and fairytale themes. However some themes are more common for the genre such as the Egyptian, pirate and snow levels. But still because they have their own charm, it still feels fresh. Each level is also full to the brim with detail, with funny little quotes written on the walls, goofy (and level unique) enemies and interact-able objects like a mailbox that pukes out coinflys when its hit.

One of my favourite levels is the Army Channel level, which actually has quite an original theme for a platformer. In fact I can't think of a single 3D platformer on the PS1 that has an army/war theme. But even though the level is small (consisting of three small areas), it has a lot of variety thrown in, featuring a tank section where you blow up a city, a prison area where you can find a hidden bunker where it could be assumed the prisoners of war escaped and a combat maze section where you can use mounted machine guns to destroy searchlights in order to navigate your way through the level and find some 'secret plans'.

My only issue is that a couple of the levels later on in the game are slightly more dull than some of the earlier ones. For example the Mythology level, while a very good theme, is just a very boring level to play through. It isn't clear where you're supposed to go and what you're supposed to do to progress and there are an abundance of power-ups that feel a bit unnecessary and over used. Which is odd because in most other levels the power ups are used very sparingly. But for the most part, the levels are great.

Who doesn't want to play a game where you're a tank driving lizard?

The overall gameplay really consists of simply exploring each level and navigating your way around it in different ways in order to complete all of the objectives. A lot of variety is added through the vehicle sections that appear in most levels (it should be noted that the vehicles are all unique and used in different ways) and the level specific objectives (such as shinking down to the size of an ant to destroy balls on a pool table, bubbles in a sink and fleas on a bears head). But also in the secret and bonus levels you can also play as different characters, some of which have unique abilities, but this isn't essential and the game can be completed without doing this.

The controls for the most part are typical 3D platformer controls. You can move, jump, attack with your tail, enter first person view, manually spin the camera and adjust how far away the camera is. There are however a few things that make Gex control differently to other platformer characters. When you press the jump button while already in the air you can perform a spring jump which sends you higher than a normal jump, you can use your lizard tongue to swallow flys, giving you an extra life or more health (or temporary power-ups which actually feel a little bit redundant and unnecessary because they aren't used much) and you can perform a karate kick with your tail. These extra moves that Gex has really separate him from other characters like Mario, Spyro and Crash and makes him actually feel like a gecko rather than just being a gecko for no reason other than aesthetics.

I'm sure this is the first and last game I'll praise for making you "actually feel like a gecko".

Even though the way Gex controls is good, there is a problem here which is very typical of this era of 3D platformers. The camera. On some more precise platforming sections (particularly in later levels) you sometimes can't tell if you're going to miss a platform or land on it and because Gex falls very quickly it makes it difficult to adjust your jump in mid air to make up for this, often resulting in you falling to a lower section of the level. One good thing however is that because of the way the levels are designed, you very rarely actually fall to your death, so you can climb back up and give it another go without losing anything other than your time. Your precious, precious time.

While we are on the subject of issues with the game... In the tutorial it is stated by your tortoise butler (yes, Gex has a tortoise butler) that you “press crouch while running to perform a deadly karate kick”. This is strange and I didn't understand at all how to do this move when I first played the game. The reason for my confusion is because the explanation on how to do the karate kick is completely wrong. You have to crouch while running and press the jump button all at the same time. Which probably sounds complicated, but it actually isn't. I really don't understand how they got the explanation of one of the most vital moves in the game wrong in the tutorial but still, you can figure it out on your own after a bit of experimentation.

Another slight issue is Gex will sometimes pull himself up a ledge with his tongue if you jump close enough to it, but when and where he does this is very random. He simply does it if he feels like it half the time, and on some ledges it seems impossible to do it at all. This can be a little finicky but thankfully most of the time you don't need to rely on this anyway because you can easily make most jumps by doing a karate kick or tail bouncing.

You lying scumbag.

Now... I've played a lot of platformers in my time and I know that a lot of them don't have good plots. But this game's plot is so strange and out of nowhere that I don't really know how to comprehend it properly.

The game starts with a cutscene showing Gex being lazy watching TV in his house. The TV shows a news broadcast which states that Agent Xtra (obviously spelled with an 'X' to be 'cool') has been kidnapped by Rez. The broadcast is then hacked into by none other than Agent Xtra (who by the way, is a live action person instead of being a cartoon person like the news reader who was previously seen) who tells Gex that she has been kidnapped in order to 'get to Gex'. Gex agrees to find her and the game begins.

My issue with this, is that as a player who hasn't played any previous Gex games, I have no idea whatsoever who Gex is, who Rez is and who Agent Xtra is. The characters aren't introduced, they just appear as if we are already supposed to understand their motivations and relationships to each other. Which to be fair, if you have played the previous Gex games, you probably would know who they all were. But sequels are supposed to reintroduce the characters in order to make the story make sense even for those that haven't played or watched or read the original material. An example of this being done well in a video game of the same genre is Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, in which the main antagonists and protagonists are introduced to the player in the very first cutscene. We know who is who and what relationships these characters have to each other straight away. At the start of Gex: Deep Cover Gecko we don't even see Rez, we just hear his name mentioned once. How are we supposed to care about the main bad guy if we don't even have a clue what he looks like? We never actually see him having any impact on anything either, we're just told that Rez is up to no good by Agent Xtra. Why should we believe her? Maybe Rez hasn't done anything wrong at all!

It was the tortoise all along! I knew there was something fishy about him!

In the very next section of the game, we navigate around Gex's secret base (apparently Gex has a secret base...) and enter big TV sets to enter the levels. How does this even work? We are given no explanation as to why Gex has a secret base or why he has the ability to enter TVs. It can be assumed from the size of the base and the fact Gex has a butler that he's rich, but we don't know why he is rich or even why he built teleporter TV sets.

I guess you could just say, “oh it's a video game, just get on with it” and that's exactly what you have to do, but it's a little bit jarring to start the game and have no clue as to who any of these characters are. And it makes it so you don't really know who you are fighting or why you are doing it.

Having only played this Gex game my assumption is that Gex is rich and built this big secret base after the events of Gex: Enter the Gecko (the second Gex game) in case Rez ever returns. When Rez does return (in Gex: Deep Cover Gecko) Gex enters the TV sets in his base that allow him to enter specific TV broadcasts and he gets rid of the bad guys inside causing chaos which results in that particular channel being fixed and making Rez's evil influence on the world weaken by reducing the amount of channels he controls on TV. It's actually quite deep to think of it as a criticism of how we are all influenced by TV... Or by how its a criticism of horizontal integrated business models where every channel is owned by a big corporation which ultimately has a huge amount of power over what media we consume, thus effectively controlling what we know and don't know about the world... Or am I reading too much into a game about an anthropomorphic lizard?

Either way, the game ends with you and Agent Xtra in a room in Gex's secret base. Gex is wearing a robe and Agent Xtra herself is wearing a dressing gown. Gex then proceeds to cut off a video call from Alfred (Gex's tortoise butler) and tell Agent Xtra that it's “Tail Time”. Yeah. The less said about the ending the better.

Who wouldn't love Gex? Such a handsome gecko. So green. So scaly.

The game's graphics and visuals are actually very good. Each level looks really alive, with all sorts of interactive objects, lots of unique enemy types and Gex wearing a different costume in every level. Each level feels vastly different to the last, which is quite a difficult thing to pull off and even very popular games like Super Mario 64 don't even do this all the time.

The graphics are cartoony, colourful and vibrant while also being very mysterious and moody in the levels that need this effect. Each level is inspired by a specific TV genre and the game does a good job of portraying this genres visually. From the yellow, sandy Egypt level to the grey and brown war level.

I also really like the attention to detail in the visuals. Like how Gex splats on the floor when falling from a height, how when he's riding a camel and the camel jumps, he grabs hold of the strap and pulls himself back down to the camel in a gravity defying cartoon fashion and how there are unique idle animations depending on what level you're on. All things that may go unnoticed, but they make the game feel all that much more charming when you do notice them.

One of the best puns in the game for sure. Elfis. Get it? Because it's a North Pole level? Elves live there? Elfis? Anyone?

The first hub world actually does a good (if not quite lazy from an actual level design point of view) job of showing the player how Gex controls. By entering the 'Wreck Room', which is basically just the tutorial level, you can learn all of Gex's basic and slightly move advanced moves. By smashing containers on the wall of the first hub area you can find all the collectables you'll be finding in the actual levels. A voiceover also explains what each item does, just in case you're unclear about what you just picked up. (Shame the voiceover didn't tell me what the hell is going on with the story).

Also hidden in the very first section of the game is a secret area which involves you hitting three suspicious tape machines to open up a wall housing a secret bonus level. This teaches the player that hidden areas can be found by interacting with suspicious looking objects (just like in real life right?) and serves as useful knowledge for later in the game. Also, there is a hand print collectable which you can't get at all. This teaches the player about power-ups. To get this collectable you need Gex to turn into a vampire which enables him to glide through the air. This is primarily used in the murder mystery level but you can get it in the hub world by staring at a painting of vampire Gex. This actually requires you to take logic used in the murder mystery level (in which you use a magnifying glass to enter paintings) and apply it outside of that level by assuming that staring at a painting will achieve a similar effect. This is some complicated puzzle solving right here. Luckily most other puzzles in the game are nowhere near as complicated as this. Sort of weird that they put this at the start of the game but still, it serves as a nice little advanced tutorial section.

What's with the terrifying mummy faces coming out of the walls? These are the things nightmares are made of.

The music in Gex is good and, like the visuals, it really puts across the certain genre of TV show you are playing. Although the music is good, it also isn't particularly memorable. Every level uses the same song but heavily remixes it in the style of the level. You would think that A: this would make the music memorable and B: the music would get boring, but actually I didn't think it did either of those things. Maybe the music was intentionally a bit forgettable because Gex's voice is supposed to be the primary focus. But still, the music gets the job done. It's just a shame there aren't any stand out music tracks.

One slight annoyance with the music however, is that why is the music in the hub world so creepy and mysterious... Isn't it supposed to be Gex's house? To him (and therefore the player playing as Gex) it shouldn't be mysterious or creepy. This is slightly odd and is the only point in the game I thought the music didn't really fit.

I just mentioned that Gex's voice is supposed to be the main thing you hear in levels. This is my logic because he hardly ever shuts up. Every ten seconds or so he's making puns and jokes, some of which are okay and really hit home his sarcastic and easy going nature, but seriously, they should have made him shut up a bit more. However, having said this you do have the option to turn the voice sound off. Which I did do after a while because it does get quite irritating hearing Gex constantly repeat the same jokes when you're spending a long time in one particular level. And when I say he doesn't shut up, don't think I'm exaggerating. In the fairytale level, he talked about genetically modified crops three times in a row. The exact same dialogue three times in a row with no longer than a second of silence in between.

What is it with this game and strangely scary enemies? Look at the grin that spider has! Sends shudders down my spine...

A fun fact is that in this particular game Gex is voiced by Danny John-Jules who is popular for playing Cat in the British sci fi sitcom Red Dwarf. Although in the American version Gex has a different voice actor. This may seem strange at first but the logic behind this is that because the Gex games parody TV shows the American and British versions of the game needed to make different references in order for the jokes to make sense. So in European regions Gex is English, while in America Gex is American. And as such they have different voice actors.

Another slightly annoying thing about the music in this game is that the jingle when you collect 50 coinflys or get a TV remote is very very loud and ear piercing. They could have made this quieter and it would have been a nice thing to signify when you've achieved something but instead it has you reaching for your real life TV remote to turn your TV down every 10 minutes.

The pause menu also makes a really loud and abrupt noise but for some reason I actually think that this is quite funny, whether this was the intention or not I don't know, but I imagine this would annoy some people too.

When you get the four collectibles from the secret levels, you gain access to the vault. In here you can input cheats to make the game easier. But we don't want to use that!

Overall I would say this is a lost little gem of the PlayStation 1 era of games. It actually surprised me replaying it how good it is and how with a few tweaks here and there it could have been something really special. It is quite strange how it never got another sequel on PS2 and at this point I think it's safe to say that we'll never get another Gex game. Which is a shame because if it had gotten a 4^th chance I think it could have really got everything right. Definitely play this if you're a fan of Super Mario 64 or a fan of 3D platformers generally. Even though the general structure is nothing original it does bring some interesting ideas to the table and is worth your time. It is however stopped from being a great game by a few issues. So although it's a lost gem, it is only a little gem. A lost, little, unpolished gem.

5/10

Pros

- Great level themes and level designs which keep the game feeling fresh all the way through

- Really good graphics and art direction

- The slow rise in difficulty is great and offers a challenge without ever getting too difficult

- The attention to detail is very good and makes each level interesting and unique

Cons

- You can't get all the collectables in one playthrough of a level despite being able to hit all the criteria for getting them in one playthrough

- Camera can be a little bit intrusive, especially on more difficult platforming sections

- The story isn't very detailed and puts the player in a situation where they don't know who anyone is, especially if you haven't played a previous game in the series

- Gex's voice is annoying after a while because he speaks to much

- Boss levels are extremely easy and dull

- The levels do begin to get slightly worse as the game goes on, the earlier levels are much more memorable

- Although the enemies in the game are different visually, from a gameplay point of view they are all the same. Just tap the attack button and they'll die eventually