Gex was a platformer franchise featuring a gecko who entered TV and movie themed worlds. The first entry, the simply titled Gex, was a 2D platformer for the 3DO, and later the Playstation 1 and Sega Saturn. The next installment switched to 3D platforming, with Gex: Enter the Gecko. It was released for the PS1 and N64. The N64 port is noted for cutting out several levels due to space constraints and lacking cutscenes the game previously had (though to be fair, it featured one level that the PS1 version lacked). The final entry, Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko, was again released on the PS1 and N64 (which did not have any of the FMVs).Despite being fairly successful and its developer continuing most of its other franchises from the era into the next (and expectations that it would make the leap), the franchise ended with the release of the last game in 1999 and has not resurfaced. It is also not remembered widely, unlike many other PS1-specific franchises; the creators of Official Playstation Magazine even expressed shock and embarrassment that they had put the third game on their cover!
Examples throughout the series:
All There in the Manual: There's a LOT in the manual of the first game that isn't in the short intro before it.
Anvil On Head: A stage hazard for the Toon TV stages in Gex: Enter The Gecko and the New Toon Land stage in the original Gex. Hazards include anvils, safes, weights, fat ladies, and kitchen sinks. Also lampshaded by Gex:
Gex: "What is it with cartoons and anvils?"
Auto Scrolling Level: The "Congo Chaos" level. Stepping on a switch early in the level activates the autoscrolling. It stops at the end of the level (and you can backtrack if you want to).
Cloudcuckoolander: Gex can be thought of as one, seeing as how his references are usually irrelevant to the situation at hand. One of his quotes even involve random barking.
Collection Sidequest: One in each game. It's a platformer released in the nineties so this is a given.
Conveyor Belt of Doom: Appears in Rez's stages in the original game and Enter The Gecko.
Crosshair Aware: Done beautifully on Gex: Enter the Gecko with the final boss, Rez. After a while, the perspective switches to Rez's eyes (while you still control Gex) with Rez firing rockets after he locks on to you.
Momma's Boy: "How could he use that mouth to kiss her mother?"
Mommy Issues: Gex's mother sold the TV to gypsies because Gex has been watching too much TV. He was so upset he ran away.
Multipurpose Tongue: Gex can use it to vomit fire, ice and slime with the right powerups, but he more commonly uses it to grab ledges instead of using his hands.
NASA: Gex's father worked there as a researcher. Now, Gex's mother owns it.
The Other Darrin: Dana Gould voiced Gex in the original game and in both sequels for the US market. However, the British dubs featured Leslie Phillips as his voice actor in Enter the Gecko, and Danny John-Jules in Deep Cover Gecko.
Piranha Problem: Piranhas appear as enemies in the first two games.
Power-Up: The original game had a large variety. This was toned down in the sequels, but each game still has a fire and ice power up.
Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Gex's family became rich after great-uncle Charlie (the original model for Izod) died and left them over $20 billion. The family bought houses, cars, judges, politicians, 51% ownership of NASA, and Australia (since the kids wanted to go there).
Spring Jump: Gex's trademark vertical mobility option. There are also jump pads in quite a few levels.
Suck E. Cheese's: Gex's mother converted Mission Control into a theme restaurant, Space Monkeys, featuring robotic dancing space chimps.
Super Not Drowning Skills: Played straight in the first game, where Gex swims Mario-style, pressing the jump button to float upwards and not needing any oxygen. In Enter The Gecko, he doesn't need oxygen in the N64 version's titanic level. Averted in Deep Cover Gecko, where Gex has an Oxygen Meter.
Wuxia: Kung Fuville (Gex) and Kung Fu Theatre levels (Gex: Enter the Gecko)
Tropes appearing in specific titles:
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The original Gex
Anticlimax: After beating Rez, you get sent back to the real world and watch Gex wonder what's on HBO and change the channel to the credits.Riveting.
Anvil On Head: How you defeat the Flatulator, the boss of the New Toonland level.
Auto Scrolling Level: The "Congo Chaos" level. Stepping on a switch early in the level activates the autoscrolling. It stops at the end of the level (and you can backtrack if you want to).
What Could Have Been: The first game was originally going to be about a Hollywood stunt-gecko who must save his studio from financial trouble.
Then, after they decided on the current premise, each world was going to have three parts. For example, the first part of the Horror world would be the cemetery, the second part a haunted mansion, and the third part would be Mode 2 (a la Rail Chase). You can read more about it here.
An earlier premise of the game is Gex is living in a gecko village island when a portal opens above them. Swarm of flying demons with pitchforks abducted them all. Gex is the only one there, and he must rescue them.
Bonus Level: They are unlocked using silver remotes (they even have "BONUS" written in the TV screen) are all collection sidequests which unlock gold remotes. Gold remotes are used to unlock more varied Secret Levels.
Circling Stars: Happens when you jump straight into a wall (which doesn't do any damage) or get knocked down from an enemy hit.
Cool Shades: Puts on a pair during the intro en route to the Media Dimension.
Collection Sidequest: This is how the bonus levels play out in Gex: Enter The Gecko. In the standard levels, it also has you collecting thematic items which change and grant you a 1-UP after getting 30 and 40. Collecting 120 (50 after the second, permanent item change) gets you a silver remote, used to unlock secret levels. The collectibles are:
Hammerspace: In the Toon TV world, the dancing flowers can pull hammers out from behind their backs to attack you. Afterwards, they just hide the hammer behind their backs again, seemingly into thin air.
A variation of the Indiana Jones theme is used in the appropriately themed bonus level: Aztec 2 Step.
The In Drag Net bonus level theme sounds remarkably similar to the famous Bad Boys from Inner Circle.
When riding a rocket in the Rocket Channel space level, a variant of the Star Wars opening theme plays. Upon arrival, a variant of the Star Wars battle theme plays.
A variant of Popeye the Sailor's theme is played while riding a boat to the castle dock in "Fine Tooning".
The intro to the second space level, "Pain In The Asteroids", is very similar to the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey... before devolving into the theme of The Jetsons.
Kaizo Trap: If you collect a remote and die before landing on the ground (falling off a cliff, run out of air, etc.) the game will act as if you had died, but will still register that you obtained the remote. Not particularly useful, unless you really don't want to go back to the Hub World, but not very frustrating either since the remote collection still counts.
Kill It with Fire: In Gex: Enter The Gecko, creating a circle of fire around an enemy while under the effects of the fire-fly grants an instant kill via rising tower of flame. Notably, this is the only way, asides from its ice counterpart, to dispose of the corpses of zombies (which is not necessary or useful in anyway but is still very cool).
Kill It With Ice: Functionally identical to the fire-fly, the ice-fly allows Gex to also instakill enemies.
Laser Blade: Gex plays with a lightsaber in his idle animation in the Rocket Channel space levels in Gex: Enter The Gecko, complete with sound effects. Sadly, he cannot use it in combat. They are also used by certain enemies in the same level.
Last-Second Word Swap: The title of the second non-bonus Rocket Channel level is name "Pain In The Asteroids".
Loin Cloth: Gex dons one in the Pre-History channel levels.
Luke, I Am Your Father: Rez tries pulling this at the end, though Gex's real father was killed in a rocket explosion. The novelization tries to reconcile this, revealing that Gex's father became Rez as as a result of the explosion.
The Men in Black: They recruit him to help get rid of Rez again.
Mix-and-Match Critters: Mooshoo Pork, the second boss. The upper part of a pig with the bottom part of a cow. Also has a curly mustache and High-Class Glass.
Mood Dissonance: Hearing Gex's wise-cracks and Non Sequitors make the horror themed levels very silly, even if they aren't meant to be taken seriously in the first place.
Secret Level: They are unlocked using gold remotes obtained from Bonus Levels and bosses. They reward the player with secret cutscenes.
Sequence Breaking: It is possible to skip a large portion of the "Fine Tooning" Toon TV level by jumping on top of a domino and jump kicking past a gap, as shown here. Normally, you would need to follow the moat river to another section of the level to find a boat which acts as a platform, as shown here.
Sequel Number Snarl: The previous game in the series is simply called "Gex", and the next game is Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko...but this game isn't called Gex 2, leading to confusion for those who missed out on the original (e.g. N64 owners.)
Thirteen Is Unlucky: In order to get a Red Remote in the second horror themed level, it is necessary to activate a switch which makes a clock strike thirteen.
Top Ten List: Gex goes through one at the end of the game explaining why "It's cool to be me, Gex." as a stinger.
Translation Train Wreck: Made fun at in "Samurai Night Fever", where there is an advertisement for a deal on subtitles, 2 for 1.
Under the Sea: The majority of the N64 exclusive Titanic level.
Vader Breath: Plays in the background of the Rocket Channel levels. Gets faster as your air gets lower.
The toon levels: "Out of Toon" and "Fine Tooning".
Your Head Asplode: If you hit the Green Grey aliens just right, you can induce this trope.
Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko
Anachronism Stew: Just in case you were somehow expecting an accurate portrayal of ancient Egypt in the "Holy Moses!", there's a metal hot dog stand at the entrance.
Anti-Frustration Feature: Levels where you can fall down and are forced to redo a long segment come with mini- checkpoints to go back to where you fell (The "Cutcheese Island"'s platforming segment and the Fairytales TV's beanstalk).
Everything Trying to Kill You: Now we have Christmas Elves, taxidermied bears, billard balls, fleas, man-eating lawnchairs, exotic blunderbuss-wielding stereotypically British hunters, mummies, Anubis clones, faces coming out of walls, giant locusts, giant spiders, nasty drill sergeants...and that's barely half-way through the game.
Gatling Good: You can use stationary gatling guns in the Army TV "War is Heck" level.
Ghost Pirate: An enemy on the "Cutcheese Island" level.
Gotta Catch Them All: Remotes, fly coins, and bonus coins which unlock levels(varies), an extra remote(100), extra health(25), and Bonus Levels respectively(varies).
Grave Humor: The tombstones in the "Organ Trail" level are fairly spiteful.
Incredible Shrinking Man: In "Clueless In Seattle", Gex needs to shrink to do some minigames on a trophy bear head, a kitchen sink, and a billiard board, because...magnifying glass?
Incredibly Lame Pun: Oh so much. If not Gex's lines then some of the titles. If not those then we get gems like these:
Killer Robot: An enemy type fought in the Anime Channel level: "When Sushi Goes Bad."
Mad Bomber: One mission in the Superhero Show level has you defeating the mad bomber.
Masked Luchador: Gex dresses as one for the first boss fight versus a wrestler.
The Maze: A mild example with the hedge maze in "Clueless In Seattle".
Medley: The music to "Totally Scrooged" is a medley of various Christmas songs: "Jingle Bells", "Hark the Herald Angels Sing", and "Frosty the Snowman" (played in a minor key to give it a sinister sound).
Mummy: An enemy in the "Holy Moses!" level. Can turn into a tornado, oddly enough.
Not Quite Flight: Gex can glide when he wears an outfit equipped with a cape. This includes the vampire costume and the red riding hood costume. He can also get this ability in his Power Suit in the Anime Channel level as well as from a superpower gained from a super power booth.
Pirate Parrot: An enemy in the "Cutcheese Island" level.
Powered Armor: Gex puts one on in the Anime Channel level. It looks like a stereotypical mecha and allows him to glide. It does not, however, reduce any damage.
Suicide Attack: The walking hand grenades in the "War is Heck" level will attempt to pull one on you.
Super Strength: Gex can transform into a super hero and gain this power to destroy special boxes and cars.
Tank Goodness: There is a segment in the "War is Heck" level where you drive a tank through a destructible city.
Tennis Boss: Evil Santa and the Mad Bomber There is also an enemy in the "Organ Trail" level who can only be defeated this way.
Theme And Variations Soundtrack: Nearly every piece of music in the third game is based on one theme, merely arranged in different ways depending on the environment.
Toilet Humour: One objective in the "Organ Trail" level is to "visit the world's largest mound of poop" because...westerns are filthy?
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