What was/is the appeal of Gex that attracts gamers?

[Tanooki]

8 hours ago, TheGameCollector said:

Gex even had a "How to Draw" series book from a series about how to draw different video game characters including Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Sonic and Crash Bandicoot. I probably still have it in storage mixed in with my video game magazines.

 

I also don't get the opinion that the N64 version of Gex 64 is any worse than the Playstation version. It actually has a Titanic themed level that is not in the Playstation version. I'm not sure what levels the N64 version is missing from the PS1 version but somebody once said there were. It's pretty close to the same thing for the most part though.

I think it's just hold over 90s fanboy rage of the era.  Before it was Sega vs Nintendo who won out that 16bit era, then it was Nintendo vs Sony which won that out.  It didn't matter if it was true or not, by then the early online media and online chatter in general, along with a largely sold skewed base of ownership of one vs the other, fact didn't matter.  Earlier cases of online where the louder, the more correct, even if that was anything but.  The N64 version is no worse than the PS1 at all, perhaps slightly better, depending how you feel.  Sure, no FMV and CD audio...fine, but as you said, it had another stage the CD didn't have, also the PS1 game would have more rampant pop in and oddities in the distance.  N64 version had it too, just not as bad because a mix of the Nintendo AA filter (some fanboys called MUDDING) along with the laid down fog giving a far shorter view distance created a different way to display the same stages.  I mean if you hated AA and fog to cover up jaggies, weird textures and more pop in, that's fine, but it doesn't make that better either seeing more defects.

 

I've never heard of a Gex learn to draw book, not surprised though, it would be interesting to see a page or two other than the cover.

[DJ Clae]

The appeal was that there weren't any good platformers for 3DO, and his one-liners could be kind of funny sometimes.

[Montrealer]

Gex was a competent and exclusive (for a limited time) platformer on a platformer where there were none.

 

Personally I hate the fact that Gex stands at about 1/3 of the screen and not centered like Mario and Sonic so the camera is always snapping back and forth when the player changes directions. The constant one-liners are annoying.

[Mikebloke]

Gex, Bubsy and Zool. All three were heavily promoted in Magazines and other adverts, and none of them at the time were played. I sadly lumped them in with games like the guitar platformer guy on saturn and ps1

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

I never liked games and mascots with attitude.  That was so big in the 90s!  I don't know why they had to give Sonic that kind of attitude, I can't imagine he is actually like that irl.

[mbd39]

People love geckos hence GEICO being so popular.

[Leeroy ST]

On 7/2/2021 at 10:17 AM, Tanooki said:

The N64 version is no worse than the PS1 at all,

 

I don't know about that:

 

 

The first image is the N64 version. Sure, that's not Gex 64, but that's the more pushed Gex 3, and one of the complaints was that they never fixed the issue from Gex 64. You saw this in various levels in Gex 64 also, where the PS1 version was cleaner.

 

Also you had poor music quality, a debatably worse controller, and cut audio and one liners and enemy graphical glitches on occasion with the N64 version.

 

Not to say the N64 was unplayable or anything but the PS1 was better imo. Although I wasn't a big fan of either game, and they are good games, I just don't see why they would be the bulk of the 15 million units Gex sold among 3 games attracting buyers like they were hot cakes. 

 

I suppose looking over this thread and other places Gex's appeal may be that it's (or was) the only franchise that actually got the attitude "talking" protagonist right. Banjo and Croc were speaking gibberish and were like fun fuzzy animals, Crash was mute, Mario is some guy, and uh yeah.

 

It was discussed before but in 2D Gex's previous contemporaries were Bubsy, Awesome Possum, some clay guy, and another voiced platformer I can't remember.

 

In 3D it was Gex: Enter the Gecko and Bubsy 3D. 

 

I guess there really wasn't anything like it. But even then I still have trouble seeing how that would translate to nearly 10 million sales between Gex 2 and 3 but at least some of those can be accounted for the novelty and actually being a good game in that style. Again Banjo was gibberish, Crash was mute, and Bubsy 3D while not anywhere near as bad as it's claimed to be, I mean worst game of all time? That's way to heavy a burden. It's playble, it's not really broken, it's ok for a little but but becomes boring, slow and tedious later. But clearly Gex's 2 3D games got the attitude talking protagonist right for the 3D platforming genre, or the Adventure platforming genre some may argue. 

[Tanooki]

I'd take the fog and AA over the very jagged look of the PS1 game with the usual poor use of weird textures with squares on them or just flat shaded, looked like crap much like how FF7 looks awful and did it wrong vs FF9 which looks magnificent a few years later.  The N64 controller, not sure how you could hate that over the PS1 one in this case, you're getting analog control vs an old SNES knockoff pad, I'd take the fluid stick play for control.  Again it's taste as far as music goes, CD tracks vs MIDI right?

 

Are they really the bulk of 15M units moved?  That's depressing.  I would have figured the PC and Gameboy incarnations did decently too having it on the go for the handheld sake of things.  I imagine those 2 formats were more of a blip than some of the other poorly selling hardware of the era.

 

Bubsy, Awesome Possum and...Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel?  Ardy Lightfoot? Aero the Acrobat? Zool?  You said Croc already.  Not sure how many of those spoke actual words, attitude they had in text at least or jibberish as did Rayman.

[Loafer]

As an ex-Amiga guy, I really liked Superfrog but really loved James Pond II: Robocod.  I get why Superfrog didn't hit big but was really surprised Robocod didn't do better; if I recall it also appeared on the consoles too.

 

Been a long time, maybe I'm wearing rose tinted glasses here

[TheGameCollector]

With the graphics differences you're also looking at emulator screenshots without all the color blending and such that CRTs at the time could produce. I think if you viewed the same places on a CRT from the era, the differences in how the video was processed would be a bit less obvious. N64 looks terrible in general on modern OLEDs but looks fine on a good old CRT.

[Leeroy ST]

On 7/14/2021 at 12:25 AM, TheGameCollector said:

With the graphics differences you're also looking at emulator screenshots without all the color blending and such that CRTs at the time could produce. I think if you viewed the same places on a CRT from the era, the differences in how the video was processed would be a bit less obvious. N64 looks terrible in general on modern OLEDs but looks fine on a good old CRT.

Missed this.

 

None of those were emulator shots. Emulator shots dont look like those, they are unnaturally clean and the iq is higher for the stage and the models. 

[ColecoGamer]

Aside from the tongue-in-cheek marketing used to promote the game, I felt that Gex - despite all its quirkiness - was a solid platformer that had the potential (at the time at least) to be the next iconic  ‘Mario’ or ‘Sonic’ mascot, but for the 3DO platform. Thing is, new IPs like Gex were sadly overlooked due to 3DO Company’s insatiable desire to port PC games to the platform. 
 

While a good portion of those PC games were fun to play, a lot of 3DO gamers like myself (at the time) also wanted to see arcade games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II ported to the platform. 
 

By the time the 3DO company finally realized this - and released Super Street Fighter II : Turbo to the platform - it was too late; the ship had already sunk.

 

In retrospect, games like Gex (again, imho at least) were the real gems in the 3DO library. Moreover, Super Street Fighter II: Turbo is the definitive home port of the coin-op for its time, surpassing all other home ports that were available.

 

Again this is more proof of the 3DO’s untapped capabilities. Had Trip and company secured more IPs like SSFII:T, I believe the 3DO’s story would have been much different than what it is today. 

Edited September 3, 2021 by ColecoGamer
Spelling

[Leeroy ST]

1 minute ago, ColecoGamer said:

Had the potential (at the time at least) to be the next iconic  ‘Mario’ or ‘Sonic’ mascot, but for the 3DO platform. Thing is, new IPs like Gex were sadly overlooked 
 

 

Gex was the best selling game on the system.

 

2 minutes ago, ColecoGamer said:

By the time the 3DO company finally realized this - and released Super Street Fighter II : Turbo to the platform - it was too late; the ship already sunk.

1995-1996 were 3DOs best years.

[ColecoGamer]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Gex was the best selling game on the system.

 

1995-1996 were 3DOs best years.

I’m not surprised to hear that Gex was the best selling game on the system. I always felt that if more games like Gex and Street Fighter appeared on the system, the 3DO’s lifespan would’ve been far greater than it actually was.

 

In either case, I still love the 3DO. It’s a fantastic console system imho.

[electricmastro]

I think the difference with Bubsy and Gex is that Bubsy makes jokes as if he’s trying to be the most funny person as if he’s presenting himself as the greatest, while Gex makes jokes as if he’s trying to be your friend or acts as if he’s your friend already while having a fun time.