- 27 levels, 3 hidden playable characters and more secrets, New moves and equipment, New costumes.
Product description
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GEX 3: Deep Cover Gecko for the Nintendo 64 is a 3D game
that features the popular secret agent Gex in even more
outrageous situations. This time, Gex must save his fellow agent
X-Tra from his nemesis Rez. To accomplish this, he must collect
remote controls from each world, thereby opening up new levels.
The game contains many features that help separate it from most
other platformers, though. One is the appearance of comedian Dana
Gould as the voice of Gex. Throughout the game, he spouts
humorous one-liners, adding to the feeling of interactivity.
Also, each level follows a different television related theme
that many gamers will instantly recognize. Gex can also gain
numerous abilities that are based on these levels, making each
one play differently from the last. GEX 3: Deep Cover Gecko takes
the familiar platform game formula and adds enough unique twists
to make it distinctively different from every other game on the
market.
.com
----
Scientists have successfully cloned frogs and sheep, but
Crave Entertainment has successfully cloned Austin Powers'
personality into a colorful little gecko named Gex. First
introduced in Gex: Enter the Gecko, the sophisticated lizard is
back in a new adventure in which he must rescue his partner,
X-Tra (Baywatch's own Marliece Andrada), from his archenemy Raz.
To save his partner, Gex must complete specific missions in
cheesy television worlds in order to acquire remote controls,
which allow him to transport to the next television world until
he meets Raz in a final showdown. Dispersed throughout the main
plot are minigames to keep you on your toes, and, of course,
there is Dana Gould with his witty one-liners.
Although the graphics are fairly good, there is a little
jerkiness and at times depth perception is a bit tricky, making
some maneuvers extremely difficult to judge. This aside, Gex 3:
Deep Cover Gecko is a good game, designed for the younger crowd
but also fun for adults. --Hugh Arnold
Pros:
* Solid, straightforward plot
* Fun minigames
* Easy learning curve
Cons:* Graphics need some work
* Witty one-liners can get tiresome
Review
------
Gex's problems with TV are seriously starting to affect
his life. He's a secret agent who lives in his own high-tech
cave, but the only kind of case he ever seems to get entails
collecting remote controls and entering television sets that
transport him to strange new worlds. In his latest adventure, he
must rescue fellow agent X-Tra (Baywatch's Marliece Andrada,
whose presence here screams, "You're being marketed to, little
boy.") from his long-standing enemy, Rez. In typical third-season
fashion, the makers of this hit series aren't straying too far
from formula, and you can tell that, like Gary Coleman in
Diff'rent Strokes, Gex is having a tough time showing off his
range.
As mentioned before, Gex enters variously themed worlds where he
must accomplish a number of tasks before receiving a
remote-control prize (there are four per stage). The more
controllers he gets, the more worlds he can enter. Gex gets
around by running, jumping, bouncing on his tail, climbing
grooved walls with his sticky gecko feet, and leaping with a
karate kick. That kick can also be used against enemies, as can
the tail bounce, tail swipe, and his spit after he swallows
special power-ups.
Probably the signature feature of the Gex series is that comedian
Dana Gould spits TV- and movie-related one-liners throughout.
While the jokes were an inventive feature in the first Gex game,
they've since gotten really tired. The writers behind Dana
Gould's quips simply seem as though they've run out of ideas. The
comments are a lot less Austin Powers-obsessed than they were in
Enter the Gecko, and since the N64 can't handle as much in the
way of audio as the PlayStation can, they're fortunately much
less frequent.
The game engine behind Gex 3 is indubitably the little engine
that could. It's responsible for Gex: Enter the Gecko, Akuji the
Heartless, this game, and the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, too.
Each game has seen its own modifications; and this is of course
an N64 iteration of the latest PlayStation iteration.
Graphically, it looks much the same as the PS version, but with
more pop-up and slowdown, as well as a general jerkiness unseen
in its 32-bit brother. The views are still nowhere as tight as in
Insomniac's ro the Dragon or Rare's Banjo-Kazooie, and it can
still be terribly difficult to judge distance and depth from your
viewpoint, sometimes making 3D-platform jumps a grueling
proposition. This doesn't come up a great deal of the time, since
there's a surprisingly small a of platform jumping in this
platform game, but when the platform jumping appears, it can be a
real teeth gnasher. It seems that the developers had realized
this, because once you get further into the later levels,
shortcuts appear. So, if you miss a jump, you won't lose too much
ground. But the final stage - where you hop from satellite to
rotating satellite on your way to battle Rez - is a perspective
nightmare, with dark textures on top of a dark background.
Visual gripes aside, the game is more fun than the last Gex N64
title. Gex's new outfits often provide him with new abilities.
For instance, when he's wearing a vampire's cape or Little Red
Riding Hood's hood, he can glide. When he has a pirate's hook, he
can use it to slide down ropes. There are also minigames that
place him in a kangaroo's pouch or in a tank. These elements may
sound lame on paper, but they do break things up. This, along
with the improved level design, made the PlayStation game
addictive enough that you wanted to play it through and maybe
even go back and discover everything there was to find within.
Unfortunately, the graphical problems in the N64 version are
frustrating enough to make you want to avoid the game, let alone
play it all the way through. Because of these problems, the
N64-specific worlds and extra options are little comfort. At its
heart, it's a better game than the last N64 version, because Gex
3: Deep Cover Gecko is superior to Gex: Enter the Gecko, but it's
still resides firmly in the shadow of its PlayStation
counterpart. --Steven Garrett
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot
logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc. -- GameSpot Review
