Summary
Although we’veyet to see the return of legends like Banjo-Kazooie, Sly Cooper, and Jak & Daxter, the past few years have seenmany platforming icons jump back into glory. Croc,Klonoa, Tombi… the list of revived mascots can and hopefully will go on, but there’s onesassy lizard that fans have been particularly excited to see.
I am, of course, talking about everyone’s favourite reference-spouting, tail-spinning gecko, Gex. His original trilogy of games may not have been on the same level asMarioandCrash, but they’ve become cult classics in their own right and are some of my personal favourites, even if I never got most of the outdated jokes. With platformers on the up again after a quiet couple of decades,it was only a matter of time before Gex got in on the reboot action.
That’s exactly why it was so exciting whenLimited Run Games announced last year that it was remastering the first three Gex gamesin its new Carbon Engine for the aptly named Gex Trilogy. We haven’t seen all that much of the project since that reveal, but I got to check it out for myself atGamescom 2024and walked away with a lot of hope in my Gex-loving heart, even if what I played was nowhere near the final product.
It’s Tail Time, Baby
The preview build I played of Gex Trilogy had me jumping right into my favourite game of the bunch - Enter the Gecko, which was my introduction to the series as a whole. The big question I had going in was whether Gex still holds up today, or if we’re all nostalgia-blind for the sarcastic green guy.
I’m happy to report that Gex has aged quite well and is just as much a joy to play in 2024 as it was back in the ‘90s. I did have to re-learn how to get my Gex on, but once I had I was in the swing of things and jumping to and fro in Smellraiser and Out of Toon which, while a little outdated with the Hellraiser reference, are still a blast to run through.
For those that haven’t played Gex before and been infected with his endless pop culture references, the second and third games in the series work similarly to Super Mario 64, with the jokey gecko jumping into each TV-themed level and jumping around platforms to find collectibles and tail whip enemies. If youhaveplayed the Gex games before, then you’ll know what to expect here, since Gex Trilogy doesn’t seem to change all that much.
While Gex 2 and 3 are 3D platformers in the vein of Super Mario 64 and Banjo, the first game is a more simplistic side-scroller.
LRG Has Big Plans For Gex
Gex holds up surprisingly well from what I played of Enter the Gecko in my brief hands-on time, but I’m a little uncertain on the remaster side of things. The build I played was said to be “super-duper early” in development by Limited Run Games manager of publishing Jared Petty and therefore was missing a lot of the features that Limited Run Games has planned to make Gex stand out from its other remasters.
I didn’t get to hear too much about what those plans are, but I was told that Limited Run Games views Gex as a “premium product” that’s going to get “premium treatment”. That suggests that there’s more happening behind the scenes than just remastered graphics in the Carbon Engine, even if that’s all I ended up seeing in my demo.
While I would love for LRG to put anything and everything into the Gex Trilogy, the thing I want to see most is a modern control scheme. My preview was played primarily using the d-pad, which felt a little strange for a modern remaster and is something that I’m both confident and hopeful will be changed in the final release.
The version of Gex 2 I played had the American voiceover instead of the one us Brits are familiar with, but it was hinted to me that players might be able to swap between them in the final game.
Don’t Expect Gex Trilogy “For A While”
As for when that final release is going to be, Petty told me that it’s “going to be a while” until we see the Gex Trilogy,so it looks unlikely that it’ll hit its planned 2024 release. Fans have been waiting a while for Gex’s return, though, so I don’t think they’ll mind waiting just a little bit longer, but it does leave me wondering what all the extra bells and whistles are going to be.
Without being shown or told what those bonus features are, though, I can only view Gex Trilogy as a fairly simple remaster at the moment. That might sound like a bad thing, but we’ve been Gex-less for so long now that I wouldn’t mind that one bit. We’ll just have to wait and see what LRG has cooking for the loveable lizard to make this its biggest revival yet.
