GEX Trilogy

I generally try to complete games before reviews, but doesn´t make sense for this one since it´s pretty much the same games as in 95, 98 and 99. There goes the biggest negative for this trilogy, it doesn´t add up anything beyond some galleries to check the art of the original games and 2 original pieces made for the trilogy; besodes that you could be running an emulator and that´s what the excecutable here on steam pretty much is, a menu to excecute 3 emulated old games. No fixxes, no cut material restored, no new levels... There´s a rewind option though that makes all 3 games kind of trivial, although you can always just not use it. With all that being said, I still loved this games as a child. I didn´t had any of the big consoles, and it made no sense to tell friends to come over to play with my game gear, but my mom had a PC and the only gaming store on town had like 5 games, all "dad" games (the kinky tetris with playmates, the train simulator, the flight simulator... you know the type of games our dads played those 3 years they played any games) and then Gex. So that was it, it was my one and only Christmas gift cause it was that expensive I guess compare to the usual TMNT plastic toys (I still ended up stealing my sisters astronaut Raphael and hidding it in the beach for me, the beach took it though, forever remembered astronaut Raphael), and I went house by house looking for my best friends to wow them with my new game. Must have take them like 10 minutes to die over and over and claim it was a horrible game, can´t blame them, Gex 1 it´s kind of dated even back then, the frame drops when you get hit, it´s like Sonic in the sense that you couldn´t see most of the upcoming danger except you weren´t moving fast, it was a platformer asking for patience when our age was demanding the opposite. I did played on my own over the years, memorizing maps and drawing them so I could complete the game... never did though. Bought the second one on Germany during a holiday, couldn´t play it cause gaming in the 90s (or now amirite?, war... war never changes) and wouldn´t play it until like 2002 when a friend updated his PC, so I would go and play on his house. I loved the second game, I liked the character before but committed mostly cause it was what I had, but the second one both my and me friend got into and copleted it.And then the third one I order on a store and it never came, would take me to own my own modify playstation consoles to finally get it online, burn the CD, play for a few days then move on onto the next game and prob deleted the save file one day thinking "nah, not comming back". So that´s basically my possitve for this review, it´s a game that makes me nostalgic, I loved the character and somehow I have fond memories of all the games, or at least 2 of them, the third more so memories about those times rather than the game itself. I´ve being playing here and there and weirdly, I still like it, I want to achieve what I had already back then and see if I can finish either 1 or 3, or even collect all remotes on 2 which I also never did despite that one being the only one I finish the story. And if you still wondering "ok but what about the games", truth to be told, besides the story of the character or the nostalgia some of us have at a particular age group, and mostly EU players I think where the character sold better (I think, at least that´s what I have always understood about it), they are basically 3 rather basic platformers: -The first one it´s 2D, it had very detailed models and backgrounds back in the day, and I think it´s one of those games where the tech came before the idea and someone eventually just went "I don´t know, a f**cking lizard or something". Gex crawling on walls was like "wow" but nowadays I guess it would not impress anyone. But it was also difficult, you had to take it slow, and despite the visuals the game runned like cr*p, even today this versions keeps some of the quirks of that speed, like the complete stop of the game when you get hit and before Gex gets to say "ouch". -The 2nd one it´s the best, prob cause it´s ripping Mario 64. You got your Hub world, you enter different maps to collect a number of items to progress and there are some secret levels, the references to TV troppes or shows and movies are more direct and less generic, Gex dresses up, and Gex tail now it´s used properly to make a higher jump, which adding the wall crawling (less open here as it will only happen on specific tiles) makes Gex the mascot that trully has skills releated to at least his physycal appearance (why is a bandicot spining? what has a plumber have to do with mushrooms? hedgehogs...fasts????). Sadly the graphics were kind of meh even back then and in order to extend the duration all maps have several remotes to get but you can only get one per play, so you are bound to repeat levels rather often. -And the third one it´s a mix-bag. On one side it´s the second on steroids, the themes for maps are again a little more generic, more of them feeling like documentary themes rather than shows and movies, but it hads good ideas and it plays well with the forcing of repeating levels by making each level cotain different areas with different goals and puzzles; also Gex dresses up for all maps now. The Hub world it´s too big and takes time to figure out where to go next though, in that sense the design felt and prob gives a bad first impression before diging into the levels. Game is famous for a weird tone, they hired a playmate to play the damsell in distress and Gex is constantly making inuendo jokes, but the gameplay and presentation in general feels more childish than the previous games. And in all three games you play as Gex, a slob gecko who just spends his days watching TV and gets trapped in the TV dimension and it´s constantly talking. I think that´s what trully made the character stand out over most other mascot platformers, for all non adventure games protagonist speaking was kind of pointless for game devs back then, it was just audio files taking space. Should you get this? If you have a story with Gex like me, then def you should, hey one possitive thing about growing old and being slaved to a job, you can now buy stuff on your own. If you don´t, frankly, I think you got better mascot platformers on Steam, this one is still dated and all the camera problems on the 3d games are still there, like I said no fixxes or improvements, you get the raw deal and it was a servicable trilogy, 2 prob still stands out for the time period but 1 was weird on a time with timeless classics of the genre allready existing and 3 was extremelly dated allready when it launched and prob didn´t help that the previous 2 were PC games and 3 was for consoles where Gex had no fans. You could also buy it for the meme, I mean, foil "It´s tail time" badget in your profile, think about it.