In the category of licenses we’ve lost track of over the decades, Gex’s tops the list. For a time, Crystal Dynamics’ mascot, the gecko, didn’t survive the Playstation 2 era. However, it seems that a swan song was planned in the early 2000s with the discovery of a demo titled Gex Jr.
Credit Images: Crystal Dynamics
It was more the good times
Gex is above all a series of three games released between 1995 and 1999 on multiple platforms, but we’ll particularly remember the versions on Playstation. It must be said that our little gecko had everything it takes to succeed, but he came into an era awash with a multitude of platform games and adventures. Most wanted to emulate the success of Super Mario 64.
Gex then disappeared into the limbo of forgotten mascots while Crystal Dynamics turned to developing a more mature series with Legacy of Kain. Then the following years with Tomb Raider.
We might then think we’d never see Gex again, but it seems some sort of spin-off has been attempted on Playstation for a while. We know this because a demo of a game called Gex Jr. just appeared online.
Unfortunately, little or no information has been given about the origins of this demo so far. We only know it’s from 2001 as the demo has a development date of January 2001. It was uploaded by justz00t for the Hidden Palace site.
A video of Gex Jr.’s demo was also released, showing a capped gecko picking up soda cans, in a level resembling a TV show. Gex Jr. appears to be answering “who wants to be a millionaire” questions while making Star Wars references. What stands out in the first place is the relative simplicity of the level in question, which perhaps shows that Gex Jr. was meant to be a game aimed primarily at young children.
It’s very likely that Gex Jr. was one of the last attempts to do anything with the Gex range, but that the project was canceled due to a lack of interest, particularly with Sony’s Playstation console, which was clearly at the end of its life in 2001.