One to get rid of the incredibly lame concepts of Stuntman/Hollywood Studio. Sooo, after seeing the Western Town level design I strongly suggested we change the design. Mario, Sonic even Earthworm Jim are in completely fantasy settings and therefore anything that appears in them needs no explanation. Most of the best games in the category use a fantasy setting. For a platform character game, I believe this is a very important decision. If on the otherhand you choose a make-believe or fantasy theme you can justify any structure you want because well it's fantasy. For example you can't have floating platforms in the sky in the a western style town because, well things don't float in the sky in the old west. One of the problems of choosing a real world theme like Western Cowboy Movie is that you can't make any game play structure you want and still have it make any sense.

One level was designed using that theme and it was just awful. The better he did the more money the 'Movie' made and therefore the better the studio did.

The level intro would show stock footage of old Hollywood western movies (for some reason marketing thought this was the greatest idea ever) and then the level would have Gex going through it doing 'stunts'. Each level would be themed around a Hollywood action movie genre. The studio he worked for was in financial trouble and helping it fail were the enemies Karl Chameleon and his henchmen like Guido Gila. The game was about Gecko X, a Hollywood stuntman (stunt Gecko).

The design to that point was heavily influenced by marketing. A few months later Justin Knorr was hired as Lead Designer. Mira Ross (Lead artist), Suzanne Dougherty (Artist), Lyle Hall (Producer) and myself (Lead Programmer). When I started on the project there were 4 people on the team. Just go into your local Toys R Us and look at all the stuff with Sonic or Mario on it and you can see why I was very excited at the opportunity to work on such a product. It was to be a huge hit, the newest mascot, one of those titles that inspires all kinds of merchandising like toys and cartoons, pens, pencils, notebooks, underroos. When I was interviewing at Crystal I was told that Gex was to be the next Sonic.

Download gex ps2