The Gunk Review – Damned With Faint Praise

The Gunk is a game that is difficult to talk about. It is not difficult to describe, and it is neither shocking nor disturbing. It will not make you rethink your life choices. This is not even a particularly bad game. But this is not a particularly good game. It's like one of these totally indescribable and rather correct days when you think I'll never remember what happened today. What did I talk about? Oh, that's right. The Gunk. You see, that's the problem.

The Gunk is a game of action and puzzle-platform exploration. The focus is on exploration rather than fighting. Riddles and platforms are quite easy. They are not without charm, though. In fact, the game has several attractive aspects, starting with its opening chapter.

The story begins hard. Ran and Beck, two planetary explorers short of money, go to a new world to discover a mysterious radio signal. They pilot one of those small, half-slaughtered spacecraft that spit more than shine, and they hope to win valuable minerals or something they can sell. Ran finds lots of goo thrilling the pair name Gunk, and aspires it with its multi-tool for weapons slash. Get rid of the country of grime allows it to resume life. It's a cool moment, at least the first times it happens.

Ran expands his circle of discoveries, venturing into caves and tropical forests. It scans interesting plants and rocks and extraterrestrial life with its tool. It improves its multitool with pieces of metal that it found, which gives it more range and power. Soon, she learns that by combining pieces of plants and environmental objects like swimming pools, she can grow living platforms. Only a sometimes clumsy camera hinders the pretty indulgent platform of the game.

Ran also finds artifacts and statues, and you can probably guess that part of the game tries to reconstruct the mystery of lost civilization. Ran and Beck are in contact almost permanent. Their conversations are pleasant and affable but quite uninteresting, although a gap is widening each other. Most of the time, Beck warned Ran to pay attention and Ran exclaims that she found something. From time to time, Ran must use its firearm to handle the environment to solve a puzzle. She also has some combat meetings, including easy bosses. By the way, it seems in contradiction with the obvious family atmosphere of the game that there is a pinch of PG-13 level swear.

Although history is developing a bit during its 6 hours (more or less), after a certain point, the gameplay stops changing significantly. Despite improvements in weapons and tools and some decor changes, the loop settles in an immutable groove. Ran and Beck argue, and their contradictory views on the exploitation and management of resources could refer to a broader theme. There is not a lot of real drama.

As lukewarm that can be the general concept of the game, there is pleasure to explore and solve puzzles. Everything is done effortlessly, which gives a relaxing gameplay for a while. Using the multiple to suck the gun is somehow satisfactory, but maybe less and less with time. Nobody wants to play a bad game, but playing The Gunk, you would like the developer who took some other big swings.

So here is the question: Is it better to do a sure game that succeeds, or a risky and ambitious game that does not succeed? Yeah, I do not know the answer either.

Gunk's vision of an extraterrestrial world is colorful of daylight and filled with flora and fauna that seem to have to grow deep in the ocean. The contrast between the brown-gray parasitic gun and the living planet is effective, but environments are also quite repetitive. Since there is no card, it leads to a wandering aim. There are artistically attractive scenes in the world, but few are impressive or really new.

Ran and Beck are rendered pretty primitively and move in a way that suggests puppets. There is a bit of offset between generally expressed dialogue and clumsy labial synchronization and facial immobility of characters. I do not know if it was an artistic choice or a budget reality imposing his will. I think it.

The Gunk is a competent product, but it seems very little risky and derived. You have already seen and played elements of this game. It can be fun for a while, but you quickly realize that The Gunk has a limited vocabulary and spends too much time to repeat itself amicably. Instead of being the basis of something more grandiose, The Gunk is content to make its exploration and its simple mechanisms all the game. As a Game Pass product, however, it is not difficult to recommend cautiously The Gunk as a pretty pleasant diverse.