Hello dear reader and welcome back to Retro Respawn. Apologies for the long, long delay in getting a new piece out, but life (and its many trials and tribulations) got in the way. We are back though and I am extremely excited to cover a series I adored when I was a kid. Take a moment to think of all the mascots the PlayStation 1 gave us. Crash Bandicoot, Lara Croft, Spyro, and Solid Snake to name just a few. This week’s Retro Respawn doesn’t cover any of those. No, we are looking at perhaps a bit of a forgotten early gaming icon this week. An early mascot that at the time was just as popular as any of those previously mentioned PS1 icons. He’s obsessed with pop culture (the overall theme of the games) and is a wise cracking gecko that will kick some serious tail. I am of course talking about, Gex.
Development and history
Initially created for the Panasonic 3DO, Gex when he was first conceived as an idea by Crystal Dynamics producer Lyle Hall. This first iteration of Gex was wildly different to the gecko we (I) would all fall in love with. Initially a stuntman called Gecko X, Hall was advised to change the character into the Gex we know today. The goal of Hall and Crystal Dynamics was to create a mascot as recognisable and beloved as stalwarts such as Mario and Sonic.
Work started on Gex in the later months of 1993, with the team hoping to have it finished by the summer of 1994. This, however would not be the case. Gex went through a bit of a turbulent development and it was delayed a couple times. The main issue was there were only two art designers for the came, with the extra power and memory afforded by the new compact disc format, it took around two months to finish a single level. By June 1994 (the originally planned finish date) only around half of the game had been completed. A new finish date of September 94 was proposed to ship in time for Christmas that year, but when September was over, Gex was still largely unfinished with many levels still to do, and the game featured no audio.
The game was finally released in April of 1995 for the 3DO after 21 months in development. A PlayStation (where arguably Gex is most well known) and Sega Saturn port came a year later in April of 1996. Gex was a huge seller for the 3DO, shipping between 750,000 and 1,00,000 units before it was packaged in with 3DO consoles. The PS1 port sold over a million copies.
Story
For a side-scrolling platformer, Gex does actually have quite an intricate and interesting story. The titular gecko is just relaxing at home trying to find something to watch on TV. A housefly buzzes past which Gex has a snack (wish my snacks would fly around my head), but this is no ordinary fly. It’s drone controlled by the evil Rez! The ruler of the Media Dimension. Rez has been after Gex to trap him in the Media Dimension to use him as its new mascot. To escape, Gex must find remotes which can destroy TVs blocking his exit back to the “real” world.
Gameplay
As previously mentioned, Gex is a side-scrolling platformer. There are 24 levels to play through, set in 5 different TV worlds. There is a 6th world which has 8 levels to play through if you find and complete all the bonus levels in the main game. A lot of the assets for the bonus game were from the scrapped Sci-Fi TV world that the devs ran out of time to include in the main game. As this is a game from the mid-90s, there is no option to save your game (more below on the QOL improvements in the port) and instead you’ll be given a password to enter for when you want to jump back in to Gex’s adventure. Many of the standard genre tropes can be found in Gex, such as hidden collectables, power-ups and health.
A big part of what made Gex so popular was he was fully voiced by comedian Dana Gould (who in the early 2000s would go on to write for a little known animated show called The Simpsons) and his dialogue was genuinely funny. Sure, after spending sometime playing Gex, you will start to hear the same lines, but they never get annoying due to how legitimately amusing they are, and how well delivered they are by Gould.
The Good
With Gex being a gecko, this gave Crystal Dynamics a bit more creative freedom in how Gex would control than say Mario or any other human type character. Gex can whip his tail to both defeat enemies, and activate switches. If you can get the timing right as well, you can even deflect projectiles sent Gex’s way, but it can be hard to get these right. Gex can also curl his tail into a spring to bounce off enemies and other objects found in the levels to get to higher areas. Speaking of traversal, Gex can climb up and down walls and ceilings to reach other areas within a level. This allows for a real sense of exploration within levels, and means Gex isn’t as simple as a side-scrolling platformer.
The controls are responsive (to a point, more below) and deaths (which are a plenty) never feel as a result of any issue with the game itself. It is a difficult game (especially compared to modern platformers) but this is just a result of being a platformer from the 90s. Challenging? Yes, but frustratingly difficult? No, I don’t think so.
Visually? The game looked and (to a degree) still looks great even now. The 32-bit visuals might not be as clean as 16-bit, but I guarantee if you showed someone Gex today and said this was made in 2026 to look like a retro title, they’d believe you.
The Bad
Reading through this retrospective you might be wondering if there are any bad points? Well, yes of course there are. Where the controls are mostly responsive, it can be frustrating to get Gex to stick to a ceiling after a jump, and then get off again. This becomes incredibly frustrating when you need to try and get attached to the ceiling before falling into a pit or right in the path of an enemy. Attacking enemies is also a tad easy. Thanks to that tail of Gex, you can attack enemies before they get close to you, meaning you’re never really in danger with the standard enemies you’ll face.
The levels themselves are fun, but the further you get into Gex’s adventure, the easier they become to navigate. Even early into the game, once you learn that you can climb up and down walls, it becomes pretty easy to find all the bonus bits. This isn’t an issue just with Gex, and is a bit of an issue in nearly all side-scrolling platformers.
Worth the Modern Price?
To buy an original copy for either the 3DO or PS1? No. They are regularly on sale at places like CEX and eBay for over £100. However, in 2025 those fine guys and gals at Limited Run Games released a Gex trilogy for all modern consoles (emulated on their Carbon Engine with some QOL features such as saving after each level) for £24.99, where you can also pick it up on sale for as low as £9.99. I would argue the £9.99 is worth it just for Gex, but you will also get the other two titles in the trilogy too, making this an easy recommendation. To get all three at £24.99 is still a steal, but unless you are absolutely desperate to play it, wait for it to go on sale.
