"GIVE THE GECKO HIS OWN TV SHOW!"

Our popular culture is an enjoyable wasteland littered with unanswered questions like: was JFK killed by fedora hat manufacturers angry because of the dramatic sales drop caused by him not wearing one when he was in office (true story!)?; how come Harrison Ford's hair doesn't move AT ALL during "Air Force One" (not even when he's dangling from the plane!)?; is Abe Vigoda dead or alive?; why is Letterman not funny anymore? And to those I'd like to add the mother of all riddles: why hasn't "Gex", the 32-bit generation's first mascot/side-scroller, gotten his own TV show on broadcast TV? Probably because of the Mike Tyson "Valentine's Day" reference (no TV rating could possibly cover that one).

Crystal Dynamics struck gold on the 3DO with the system's first side-scrolling platform game (no, "Soccer Kid" doesn't count), and it gave him a strong B+ title to port over to Saturn/PSX to complement the line-up of 3DO's other C titles ("The Horde" anyone?). Addicted to television, permanently stuck at home watching endless hours of boob-tube on hundreds of channels, "Gex" has a mouth that can (and will) get him in trouble with the villainous Rez, who kidnaps the gecko and warps him into the TV worlds he's used to watching. He'll need all that media knowledge to make it through the game's five levels (six if you complete all the hidden warps!) alive and kicking. Can "Gex" find the Way, "The Way of the Warrior"? "Gex" would probably quip: "I could find the way if I were able to move diagonally!" (that would be funny if you owned a 3DO with the stiff D-pad).

GRAPHICS / VISUALS: A-

The game doesn't push the Saturn hardware at all, and it features less parallax and special effects that other side- scrollers in the system ("Rayman" anyone?), but the game's best asset is the use of its graphics to spoof TV and film's cliche' settings: the CEMETERY map is filled with hockey-masked, chainsaw-wielding murderes and zombies that resemble the offspring of a duck and Frankestein's monster; it is suitably dark with dark-green hues and a Linda Blair lookalike as the final boss. NEW TOON LAND, by contrast, is a world filled with vibrant colors and enemies that spoof old Warner Bros./MGM cartoons and features a man who ate too many burritos as the boss (a tribute to Interplay's 16-bit classic "Boogerman"?). Similar themes can be found in JUNGLE ISLE (obligatory Indiana Jones-inspired world), KUNG FUVILLE (Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee references galore!) and REZ'S LAIR (the apocalyptic future!). The last hidden world looks just like this last one, but is considerably harder to access and may deprive gamers with little patience from seeing some of the game's sharpest graphics.

The worlds of "Gex" were rendered on SGI computers, and have a plasticity to their look that enhances the sharpness and makes the game look alive (particularly in NEW TOON LAND). The "Gex" character itself is animated with 450 frames of animation and is fully rendered (unlike all the other characters in the game, who were hand-drawn to save the 3DO processors some power) ala "Killer Instinct" sprites. Most of the game looks just as it did on 3DO in 1995, with the only noticeable Saturn enhancements being the elimination of the choppy slowdown, the improvements in the control (more on that later) and a slightly improved compression for the rendered intro and ending sequences.

MUSIC / SOUND EFFECTS: A-

Themed music depending on the level "Gex" finds himself in, and some of it is quite enjoyable. JUNGLE ISLE's drumbeats and yells are a hoot, and although the music loops every few minutes (ala "Shadows of the Empire"), it doesn't get on your nerves; with that said, I'll die if I ever have to hear the stupid NEW TOON LAND tune again. The "boings" and "whacks" of your jumps and whips of your tail come through loud and clear ("It's tail time!"). There is very little in the music or sound effects that would make them distinctive or memorable like, for example, the Sonic series.

What "Gex" can do is tickle your funny bone with hundreds of hilarious one-liners and quips that comedian Dana Gould wrote and performed for the title. The less of them you know the better, since there is just so much laughter you can muster from the same line until you get sick of the damn thing; to their credit, the creators of "Gex" made some level-specific jokes that are replaced by new ones on latter levels, adding an incentive to continue playing the title and hear more of them ("I'm working without a net here!"). The Saturn version has cleaner and less-digitized samples, which lets you hear the jokes more clearly (the 3DO version's one-liners sounded fuzzy). Unfortunately no new jokes were added for the Sega machine: the same jokes used on 3DO were recycled for Saturn (but recycling is good, isn't it?).

GAMEPLAY / FUN FACTOR: A-

I had a ball playing "Gex" for an entire weekend on Saturn, even though I own and every few moons still play the 3DO copy. The above-mentioned improvements in the A/V departments were subtle enough to go unnoticed, but the one noticeable improvement the Saturn version boasts is tighter control. It just feels more responsive and precise than it does on 3DO, making good use of the Saturn control pad which was designed with this type of game in mind. You can customize your buttons to accommodate your gecko's actions (tongue, jump, whip...sick enough for you?) to your liking. If you've never played the game on 3DO, then this improvements might be taken for granted when you check the Saturn copy but that only means you'll receive a good game to begin with.

A word about the gameplay. This is another in an extremely long list of side-scroller platforms, and I'd say that although it attempts to deviate from the cliche-riddled genre with humor and style, it is still at its heart an average game for the genre. Innovation can't to be found here: this is a warning to those who might be led to expect platform nirvana ("Yoshi's Island" anyone?) from "Gex". This is a game made by and for people who grew up watching TV and playing console videogames. The humor and gentle sense of goofiness, although not up to Shiny Entertainment's whacked-out level, are the main selling points of this Crystal Dynamics franchise.

OVERALL: B+

Consider "Gex" for Saturn if you want and crave side-scrollers with an attitude and have an entire weekend to kill; if I had not played the 3DO version to death I'd still be impressed with this puppy and its asking price ($20). Saturn won't be receiving the upcoming sequel, "Agent Gex", anytime soon (or ever) since it'll be a PSX exclusive, but the original still has charm and charisma. This 3DO-native title survived the death of its platform and has established a franchise on other consoles, which proves you can't keep a good gecko down for long. Which again leads to the same question: where's the "Gex" TV show? And how about the toys?
- J.M. Vargas