izigame.me

I love this series because I grew up with the 3D ones on the PS1. So this was a day one purchase no matter what. I've since beat all three games and got all the achievements. Overall i'd say it's a passible compilation but not perfect.
I'm going to start with the positives, because I don't want this review to be only negative:
1. The new rewind feature definitely comes in handy for Gex 1 which is considerably more difficult than the others. I like how you can just select a moment too instead of having to manually rewind back to the point you want.
2. I felt an improvement in performance with Gex 2 and Gex 3. Many moments where the game would slow down in the originals now don't and it feels like the games are locked at 30fps now instead of trying to approach 30 and slowing down when theres too much on screen. It would be even better if they ran at 60+ fps but as it is, it's an improved, yet subtle improvement over the originals.
3. The improved controls in Gex 2 and 3 feel great (for the most part, i'll get to the core flaw later) I found it way more precise and that could've been why the games felt better in performance as well. Maybe I was just playing the games better and faster overall because I had a better sense of control.
4. The new menus are very stylish and creative which is honestly the highest quality aspect of this compilation.
So heres the negatives:
1. I am not a fan of the new save system. It feels kind of clunky honestly. You can't save the game after you beat the final boss, the games just reset, so you better save before you fight Rez in every game. I also wonder why they even went with save states in the first place. I get it in Gex 1 because it doesn't have a proper save system but Gex 2 and Gex 3 did, yet they removed them entirely for something more clunky. I also heard that there's corruption issues with the saves as well but honestly I never experienced them.
2. I know I was praising the new controls earlier but there's one problem with them. They ruined the controls for driving the tank in Gex 3. My god, I was wobbling constantly because they're too precise, a tank shouldn't control like that, the more limited direction makes sense in that context and I don't think they took that into account. Either way, it's not a huge deal because you use the Tank in one stage, and like two bonus stages. It just threw me off of a ton which is why I felt like mentioning it.
3. There's a lot of audio issues, wrong instrumentation or instruments just straight up not playing, this is an obvious emulation issue that kind of baffles me because the game features an option to listen to the soundtracks in the menus. You'd think they'd listen to the OST and realize that it's not playing right while playing the game. Luckily this has been addressed in a new update patch as I type this.
4. There's some graphical issues as well. In Gex 2, the collectable icon you see on the right of the screen in the Bonus Stages looks like they're being stretched too thin. I have to assume this is the fault of the 16:9 resolution not being properly implemented. Every time you jump into a TV as well the resolution changes slightly. Almost as if the game's resolution is a bit too zoomed in and it corrects itself when you get to the results screen. This happens in Gex 3 as well which isn't really a surprise considering how much Gex 3 is built off of Gex 2's engine. Pretty much all the problems Gex 2 has are in Gex 3 as well. Some are even worse in Gex 3. I noticed that a building in the final map (Funky Town) had glitchy textures as well. Another obvious emulation issue.
5. This one is unrelated and might just be bad luck but once I beat Gex 3, my controller just stopped working. I couldn't even leave the game to enter the menu, I had to manually close the game with my mouse.
6. This is more of a nitpick but I don't get why they couldn't just include the N64 versions as well since they're different ports with exclusive levels. They include footage of the exclusive levels in the extras menu but it's just a video showing them off. I'm fine with the exclusion of the GBC games (because honestly they're not that good) but I feel like for posterity sake the N64 versions of Gex 2 and Gex 3 should've been included as well much like the PAL voices because they have content that's not in the PS1 versions.
I'm fine with spending money on this because I'm already a Gex fan, but I can't in good consciousness recommend it now at it's current price. There's just too many things wrong and it feels like a slapped together compilation. Gex deserved better than this and I'm a bit disappointed. Hopefully further patches can fix many of these problems but come on, how come Croc got a better remaster than Gex? These are good games from the 90s that got lost to time but the emulation leaves a lot to be desired.