There’s clearly never been a better time to celebrate our favourite retro releases.

In recent months we’ve seen the return of Croc and Glover. And in just the next few weeks, Patapon and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4.

While Gex is slightly less known and regarded than some of the above, it absolutely has its place in gaming history and seeing it return and preserved, is a win for gaming lineage and PS1 afficiandos.

The Gex Trilogy is a bit of a mixed bag, truth be told. Some elements of it haven’t aged so well, others are great and enjoyable to dive into. But each game is quite different in terms of approach and control and so I’ll judge each by their own merits with a final overview of the package and presentation.

Starting with the original Gex, a side-scrolling platformer set across various different themed levels, some depicted like a horror cemetary, toonland, and jungle. It sounds standard fare, but the game is odd in that each level requires you to find a video tape hidden within it. And without it, you can’t access other stages on the level select map as the tape is then plugged into the correct level to essentially activate it. So theoretically you could complete a level and have to replay it through again because you couldn’t find the tape.

Suffice it to say, that concept might have seemed fun and unique back in the 90s, but it’s not so fun now, especially with how rough and ready some stages are.

That’s sort of the issue with the Gex Trilogy as a whole, in that it’s just hard to go back to  most of these games with the quality nd volume of platformers we’ve played since it released. The genre has moved on so much and it doesn’t have the replayable charm of vintage Nintendo.

You can at least play the game as intended with a native centered screen size, CRT filter and border. It looks a lot better for that, rather than trying to stretch the game out to a larger, modern day TV which becomes even more pixelated and granular.

That’s the main essence of LRG’s Carbon Engine working to effect. LRG want to try to recreate the game as it was originally intended and succeed at doing that, though the faithful recreation does occasionally create some sound effect and music distortion and of course the frame rate is definitely not smooth. Par for the course of the times, folks, it certainly does the job of creating a game from the times.

The first Gex is pretty clunky in general but there’s some ideas here that at least tried to expand upon what was seen in other titles, like the aforementioned video tape concept, licking at bugs, and scaling the walls to get through tight spaces. It’s a platformer that probably could have stayed back in the 90s, but there’s something about the Gecko’s charm that is infectious, spouting out 90s TV and pop culture. It at least makes this a fun game to revisit for a short while.

In Gex: Enter the Gecko, the game switches into a more 3D perspective and really dials the humor up to eleven with a more wacky, off-beat story, cut-scenes and those camera pan-throughs of entire levels that were such a thing on loading and menu screens.

Where Gex 1 obviously didn’t have this problem, you’ll find the camera is heavy and weighted as you turn and pan, and the design and structure of the game is quite significantly different than the first, now giving you set objectives to fulfil, like collecting x amount of items or finding a certain thing. Similar to the first, the levels are designed like movie sets and as you’re wandering around and fighting, the Gecko is casually throwing out Austin Powers lines like they’d already gone out of fashion. Because they probably had.

Levels even have references to Looney Toons with the Rabbit Season/Duck Season, as well as other 90s shows and films you probably watched. It looks a lot sharper, of course, particularly with the classic resolution and is a much more enjoyable, modern take on a platformer that’s aged a lot better and is one of the easier to get into. It’s easily the game I spent the most time on and definitely got more than a few chuckles out of the lines.

Then a year later, Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko dropped and seemed to be the final take on the series. It’s more about disguise and espionage and a slightly more expanded version of Gex 2 with improved cut-scenes, more story, humor and a vibe that reminded me quite a bit of Rayman 2 and 3, partiuclarly the Great Escape’s pirate esque ships. But also there’s a lot of nods to Tomb Raider, and even Tomb Raider 2’s butler and mansion training levels.

The frame rate remains pretty hiccupy and the screen layout is still quite blurry, grainy and stretched. But you can tell Crystal Dynamics really pushed to maximise the potential of this one, they even added some live action actors into the mix. Well, mostly one with Agent Xtra – also a reference to 90s culture as she’s played by Baywatch star, Marliece Andrada.

It all still very much  fits the vibe and aesthetic, especially as this one leant even harder into the Austin Powers joke, though by this point, they’d really dug that idea into the ground.

This follows on nicely from Gex 2 though in terms of mechanical offerings and is definitely more action-adventure like, leaning more closely towards Eidos crown jewel at the time, Tomb Raider. The difference between Gex 2 and 3 is you’ll have access to vehicles now for more destruction and carnage.

Gex can also swim, glide and of course, change disguises to maintain his secret identity, which freshens up the formaula nicely as each disguise presents new opportunities. The game is certainly the more cohesive of the three and will feel the easiest for many to jump into, particularly with the collecting of bugs to unlock secret levels and the general layout and variety.

But as you can see, we’re dealing with three quite different games, even though 2 and 3 share more DNA with each other, each one a step up in pushing the boundaries of possibilities and a steady increase of ambition every time.

And the presentation in general comes in a nice package, there’s a lot of cutting room floor things to find, like lost videos of the original voice actor talking about playing Gex, you can also adjust your region to listen to both the European and American voice actor, whichever you grew up with.

There’s also a rewind time functionality so you can get yourself out of some sticky spots, and you can save anywhere so you don’t get caught out by some of the game’s tougher difficulty spikes. There’s concept art, opportunities to listen to the music score and a nice, consistent UI to fall-back on to bring it all together.

Gex Trilogy is not a must own package, but it’s both a wonderful trip down memory lane for those who need some 90s classic culture in their lives, or who played the originals and need a reminder of what these games were. And for those who haven’t, the Gex games do show gradual progression and evolution, and that’s an interesting detail to look at and appreciate. But there’s also good fun to be had here and laughs to be had.

A fun diversion, even if it is often a stark reminder of just how far games have come.

Verdict

GEX Trilogy is a very faithful restoration of each of the classic games through the Carbon Engine. Each one shows the development and evolution of the franchise through iteration and the references, themes and humour are a massive product of their times. That often makes this one difficult to love as the genre has moved on enormously since but the presentation of this package, the options, and the nostalgia of it all mean this is the absolute best way to experience these games. And in terms of preservation, it cannot be overstated that games this good should never be lost to time, even if their essence is so deeply rooted in it. 

Pros

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Gex Trilogy is out now on PC, PS, Xbox and Switch 1

Played on PlayStation 5

Code kindly provided by Limited Run for review purposes