Gilde highly praised Gex's visuals, and wrote that it would "win a 3DO beauty pageant". Prior to release, "GameFan"s E. Storm called Gex's model "one of the best looking and animated characters that have ever seen" and praised the game's environments and parallax scrolling; however, he also expressed disdain in the game's titular character dawning the only pre-rendered model out of all of the characters, although he admitted that they were still "drawn well for the most part." In a later set of reviews from the same publication following the game's release, reviewer K. Lee praised the mix of bitmapped graphics and SGI renders used for the sprites. The other 2 "Gamefan" reviewers, Nick Rox and "Skid", expressed awe at the game's ability to extensively use parallax scrolling in spite of the 3DO's limited hardware.