Gecko Ahoy

I spent the past week visiting my 'rents in boring sunny suburban Massachusetts. My first PSOne is still there, and my little sis likes to play it. She's not really a gamer, per se; she still plays the same three or four games from the '90s to kill time, though. We decided to stay up late and revisit an old favorite, a redux of the gaming marathons we used to have as kids when we still lived in the same house. I think everyone has at least one special game, where you've memorized every little in-and-out, all the secrets and such, so that when you replay it you do so almost entirely without thought and from memory, operating on instinct, no matter how much time has passed. Seems like back when we were kids, we had, like, five solid games per system and that was about it, right? Hence you'd play the same few over and over, without even worrying about whether they were "good" or not; all you knew is that you liked 'em enough.

Super Mario Land is one such game for me; Donkey Kong Country's another, and Bonk's Adventure also comes to mind. Strangely, though, the one me and sis chose to marathon on this visit was Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko.

At a glance, Eidos' little lizard circa 1998 had all of the makings of one of those exploitive 3D platformer disasters that were so prevalent at that time:"wacky" animal mascot, "humorous" themes (read: subtle toilet humor and dated pop culture references), "comedy" voice acting that resembled someone's best Jim Carrey impression -- and yes, even actress Marliece Endrada of Baywatch -- Baywatch -- in live-motion acting scenes. Kiss of death, anyone?

However, I'm not sure if it's the voice of sentimentality talking, but playing it again, I couldn't help but note what a solid, detailed, fun and funny game Gex 3 is. You're not just a James Bond-esque Gecko to look "cool" -- the moves are outright lizard-like, from sticky tongue to wall-crawling and bouncy-tailing it. The levels are non-linear; you can access different worlds as soon as you've completed enough total mission objectives among the preceding ones, in any order. There are plenty of bonus levels and secrets, and it's appropriately challenging without ever being obtuse -- it's challenging because it is, not because the game design is bad. Imagine that.

The best part about it, though, is the attention to detail, something I took for granted when I was a kid. All of the environments are really detailed, with little subtle jokes tossed in at every turn. There's no lazy designer's endless chipset repetition and all of the objectives are individual and interesting. Each area has a theme -- there's a Christmas level, a pirate ship, a fairy tale beanstalk, and a Sherlock Holmes-style mansion, to name a few, and Gex has different costumes and different abilities in each. And as tacky as the '90's humor is, it's occasionally sorta cute, and Gex's random comments often seem to be proximity-triggered: walk near the dancing candy canes and he lisps, Broadway-style, "And-a one! And-a-two! You're a candy cane, and dancing!" Later on, on an icy mountain, he snarks, "Auditions for The Shining, right this way."

It was a real treat to appreciate the design of a really, really cheezy old-ish game, and to realize that we didn't just play it repetitively because it was all we had; we did it 'cause it was frickin' fun. Anyone else ever play Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko? Am I totally crazy with sentimental bias here? I never used to read game magazines back then, so I have no real idea what the wider reception for this game was.

Also, what obscure/corny/despised/forgotten titles hold a special place in your heart, and why?

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