I've upped my production values this week and captured my own footage and converted it into bespoke .gifs, thus instantly making this newsletter feel like actual work now, which is never good. They look bloody brilliant though, don't they?

I've spent most of the week playing Halo Infinite's new multiplayer mode, Last Spartan Standing, but took a bit of time out of kicking everyone's arse off on that to have a look at this Square-Enix/Embracer Group sale and dig around for the real on-brand Andi bullshit hidden away, deep in the mountain of things I don't understand and aren't going to sit here and pretend I do.

Time to stick to my areas of expertise. It is time to talk about Gex.

Gexcellent.

I'm sure people who are much smarter than me and have a much greater knowledge of the ins and outs of the specifics of this deal can probably explain why this has taken place but to the average videogame fan it does appear that Square Enix sold the IP rights to Legacy of Kain, Thief, Deus Ex, and fucking Tomb Raider as well as a bunch of development teams to Embracer Group for $300m so they could research and invest in a bunch of crypto scam shite.

So, of course, there's already been a million articles about what we'd like to see from new instalments from the aforementioned games. Nowt wrong with that, as they're all series' that we'd be very excited to see more of but you didn't come here for that, did you? We're going off the beaten track here and talking about four cool IPs that Embracer have likely taken over as part of this sale.

It is time to visit the PS1 AA game section, once again...

Gex

The Gex games were decent 3D platformers (except the first, which was a fairly mid 2D one) that were packed with pop culture references of the time. Each stage themed around a different movie/TV genre, the humour was hit and miss and largely quite cheesy, resulting in Gex becoming a bit of a meme game as the years have gone on. There's also a bit of a weird thing where people seem to remember the 3D Gex games as being "bad, actually" when that's categorically bollocks.

So where do you go with a new Gex game? Rather than parody the endless Disney/Marvel movies or major TV stuff like Game of Thrones, I think the move is to really lean into Gex's newfound position as a bit of a meme and well, have Gex tackle THE INTERNET. Influencers, viral videos, YouTube stuff and, of course, memes and some self referential humour. What's the point in doing yet another "character is a super hero in an Avengers spoof" thing when there's something a bit more unique available? The last Gex game was in 1999 (!!!), which predates even fucking Star Wars Kid. There's a lot of material available. Give me Gex doing the Roll Safe head tap meme, have him find Harambe... properly get me rolling my eyes at some of this stuff but make sure there's at least a begrudging grin on my face while I do that. Just maybe dodge that whole "Chris Chan" thing, yeah?

The fact there hasn't been one since 1999 is definitely a big part of why the 3D Gex games aren't remembered too fondly. There's been a lot of leaps (sorry) forward in the 3D platform genre in the TWENTY THREE YEARS since we last played a Gex game and there's definitely potential to get something going again with this license. It's going to come down to whether you can find writers who can make the humour work and ensure that you're laughing with a new Gex game and not at it.

Akuji The Heartless

Okay, I'll admit that this one is very much one for me. Akuji The Heartless' greatest crime was that it existed in that weird space where 3D traversal was almost mandatory in your games but we were still figuring out how to do proper 3D movement and decent camera controls (unless you were called Nintendo, of course) which mean, unsurprisingly, its a bit clunky to control and the camera is functional at best and a genuine hindrance at worst.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I love it. It's plays like a linear, more action-focused version of Soul Reaver, so although there's no big, interconnected world, there's still exploration required within the stages as you seek out your ancestor's souls, which are basically the stars from Super Mario 64. Find a specific amount and you unlock the boss door, beat the boss to unlock the next set of stages. Repeat until the end. Undeniably simplistic but it rarely does anything that'll piss you off and the surprisingly good characters, voice acting and stage design carry the fairly easy and one-dimensional combat. Akuji himself is voice by Shaft! Damn right!

This is the most unlikely out of the four games to be resurrected but we're in a post-Dark Souls, post-Platinum Games industry now where everyone knows what you'd need to do to create a brilliant, dark Voodoo influenced world and how you can make it interesting to traverse and feel satisfying when you battle against hordes of enemies. I think there's mileage in the setting here but it wouldn't surprise me if I am one of ten people on the planet who also think that Akuji should make a return. If you're one of them, then hello, my brother.

Pandemonium

If I'm going to suggest Akuji the fucking Heartless, then I have to suggest on that might actually have the chance of shifting a few copies. I never really liked Pandemonium. I played it AFTER I'd finished Super Mario 64 and the whole thing felt a bit outclassed and outdated. The graphics did a LOT of heavy lifting for this one and once you'd seen Nintendo's 3D masterpiece through to the end, this couldn't hide behind some admittedly impressive for the time visuals. For me, it was a solid but utterly unspectacular platformer, a relic from the 16-bit generation wearing 32-bit trousers.

Thing is, it sold ridiculously well. Whenever I'm chatting about old games with anyone who is a couple of years younger than me, they have a strong nostalgic connection to Pandemonium. Released around the same time as the first Crash Bandicoot game, it was a colourful, breezy and - despite my distaste for it - fairly fun platform game on a console that tended to market its titles towards this new bourgeoning post-club market. It was the perfect game at the perfect time for a lot of people - those that didn't own an N64, basically.

You could absolutely get away with just reissuing this with a graphical update and people would pick it up but with the tech we have at our disposal now you could really go to town with much more creative level structure and impressive visuals, taking influence from the many indie 2D platformers that have come out of the years. I think it'd be a bit of a tap-in in regards to public response and I think any new Pandemonium game would easily be a better game than this and its sequel.

The Unholy War

A truly unique title on the PlayStation, The Unholy War was a mix of simplistic Advance Wars style tactical combat and Powerstone-esque arena brawler. There's two teams, the Teknos and the Arkane, each with a different roster of eight unique characters. They all have different move sets, movement options, amounts of health and mana for using abilities and a big part of the game is not only mastery of this stuff but also figuring out which character works best against another. There's a lot of counter-picking in this game when you're trying to beat your opponent. It's a lot of fun, even in the Mayhem quickplay mode, which simply has you fighting your mates or the AI.

The Strategy mode is where the genius lies. You're given an amount of characters and are place on a map covering in hexagonal spaces. Here, it's a traditional strategy game - you get an amount of movement points per turn and can capture structures to gain resources and new characters from your team's roster - but when you choose to fight a member of the opposition, it loads into the arena battle for you to duke it out. There's also a surprising amount of charm and character in what could be a very po-faced game. All the characters have their own look and moves and little one-liners. There was a demo of The Unholy War stuck on the cover of the UK's Official PlayStation Magazine which limited you to the use of only a few of the characters and simply tweeting about this game can still get people quoting lines of dialogue from it, even if that was all they played! It's really cool and, crucially, decent at both parts of the package.

The only issue with The Unholy War is the main thing that would absolutely be fixed by some sort of new edition - there's barely anything to it. There's the Mayhem mode if you fancy a quick scrap and there's 12 maps to clear on the Strategy mode (with three difficulty settings, to be fair) but that is IT. There's only the two teams, too, so all you can do is run them against each other or do a mirror match but that is all there is to do here. It is extremely bare bones, carried almost entirely by the fact that it is a really, really cool concept. A full campaign and perhaps a load of new characters (or even full new teams) would instantly add a lot more to this mix of strategy and action that hasn't really been done in a meaningful way since.

THANKS FOR READING.

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