Other than the fact that it has been a fairly well rounded series, one of the main attractions to the Gex series has been the implementation of comedian Dana Gould as the voice of Gex. The first two times it was a neat gimmick and a couple of the lines were actually fairly clever and humorous. However, in Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko it has just becoming plainly bothersome. I found myself chuckling once or twice during my playtime, but most of the time it just aggravating myself even further. And to make things even worse is the fact that the sound has been muffled out enough that it becomes hard to distinguish what Gex is saying at times.

Although not integral to the actual gameplay, Gex 3 at least has a story to go along with what is happening, even if it is weak and generic. Gex's recently obtained sidekick, Agent Xtra (Crystal Dynamics receives bonus points for Agent Xtra being done by Baywatch's Marliece Andrada) has, gasp, been kidnapped by the despicably evil Rez. Taking her to the Media Dimension, it is up to Gex to gather a massive amount of useless object pick ups in order to make it to another level.

Certain platformers might lack variety in their stages, but, fortunately, there isn't a problem like that in Deep Cover Gecko. Like other titles in the genre, Deep Cover Gecko is split into 'worlds' of sorts that each have a unique theme. For example, entering into a large pyramid produces a stage inside an ancient Egyptian mummy's tomb, or hopping into an ice world that has evil Santas tossing deadly presents at the player and elves tossing snowballs (thankfully not of the yellow breed) in the direction of Gex's head. A nice touch that helps to spruce up the variety in the levels are mini-games at times hidden inside of the stages or found by searching for a hidden passage in the level select. Some of the mini-games include thrashing around on a snowboard attempting to whack a couple of elves and swimming in a kitchen sink trying to pop bubbles with the tail whip attack.

All this variety would be good and well, except that looking at the levels isn't much of a treat. Grasping onto the classic blurry texture look, Deep Cover Gecko also incorporates more than enough frame rate loss and slowdown. The latter doesn't affect actually playing the game, but can get on the nerves more and more as time goes on. This is one of those titles that could have really benefited from the addition of Expansion Pak compatibility. A bit more time spent on optimizing the game's engine would have been nice, too.

After playing through most of this game it's apparent that there needs to be a game to come along and give developers a new way to have 3D games work - and soon. Deep Cover Gecko has the player collecting item after item in order to pass onto the next stage and world. It worked in Super Mario 64, etc., but it is definitely time for a change of pace. Grabbing remotes and bonus icons simply is not all that fun.

The problems don't end at this, though. One of the collectable items in the game are little butterfly-like things that can help Gex achieve extra lives. At times these items have shadows under them, but most of the time they don't. This hampers picking them up because a lot of the time you can't tell where they even are! Deep Cover Gecko's music is nothing close to special, either. I felt like turning down the volume entirely and not listening to it at all, at times.