Hi there, here is the Zap.
In this The Gunk Review you get a little insight into the sci-fi action-adventure
with puzzle elements, platforming passages and a lot of sticky slime.
I'll tell you how it works, what's in it and at the end there is a rating
from me.
But above all I would like to give you all the information so that you can decide for yourself
whether the game could be fun for you.
The Gunk is developed by Image and Form and published by Thunderful.
The team had previously developed the games in the Steamworld series.
I have received a free test key, thanks for that.
However, this should not affect my rating, as I always test
all games with the back of my mind thinking how I would feel if I
had paid full price.
► The Gunk - Gameplay - Characters and Story In a distant future, long after
humanity completely destroyed the earth, humans live scattered in space.
Corporations rule and the most important resource is energy for propulsion of spaceships.
Our main heroine Rani travels through space with her friend Becks and the somewhat confused
cooking robot Curt to find energy reserves.
Their Dust Bunny spaceship isn't far from the junkyard, but Becks
tries to keep the old crate airworthy.
Rani lost her right hand a long time ago and is now wearing a
mechanical power glove that she affectionately calls Pumpkin.
When she's alone on her travels, she sometimes starts talking
to him .
Otherwise, she likes to chat with Becks by radio, at least when the two are not mad at each other
.
We experience the whole story from Rani’s point of view and mostly we’re alone
.
Sometimes we return to the spaceship and can have short conversations
with the other characters there.
But the main story is almost always integrated into the course of the game and takes place as
radio conversations while walking around or sometimes as a cut scene.
► Type of game - Action-Adventure In The Gunk we travel through a colorful science
fiction world, solving all kinds of puzzles.
In addition, we use our mechanical power glove to suck up dirt called
"gunk", loosely translated as something like "sticky mass" like with a vacuum cleaner.
This mud has contaminated the whole planet and whenever we have eliminated
it in a certain area, nature gradually grows and from the previously black and red contamination
an enormously beautiful world emerges.
Often new bridges, climbing tendrils or mushrooms grow, which then help us
to progress further
in the level . We scan our environment and thereby gain experience, which unlocks
new upgrades for our glove.
These improvements, such as "sucking faster", different shots, bait or simply
more stamina, we don't get immediately.
We need to gather ample resources first and then return to our spaceship
so we can manufacture them at the workbench.
The world is divided into individual maps, which we gradually explore, cleanse,
uncover its secrets and progress through the story.
We can set teleport markers at some points and then travel quickly to the spaceship
and back again.
At first the environment is polluted, but still quite peaceful.
But little by little we also come across various alien monsters.
These are seldom defeated by shooting, but mostly by somewhat more complex tactics.
Some we have to suck in with the glove and throw them on the ground, with others we have to catch their
projectile, throw it back at them in a targeted manner in order to stun them and then quickly pull them out of
the earth.
With still others, we have to avoid their dangerous onslaught attacks and then get to their
backs in order to "suck off" their energy from a sensitive area.
The world is structured quite linearly, the order of the cards is almost always
given exactly.
However, most of the cards are designed to be really varied.
And the puzzles and combination puzzles offered there as well as jumping tasks stimulate the head.
► Technology, graphics, sound The Gunk was developed with Unreal Engine 4.
As a result, the graphics are usually stylish and of high quality.
However, there were also jerks on my mid-range PC, especially in the cut scenes,
for example when you took an elevator through a larger level
.
In these situations, the FPS would sometimes drop to 15 or even lower.
The textures and animations are chic, and the design of the characters and levels is upper
middle class, even better in some areas.
What I didn't like that much were the very stiff faces.
It is true that when the characters look into the camera while they are talking, they have something like
lip movements, but otherwise no emotions can be seen on their faces
.
The setting of The Gunk is good.
The music is nice too.
But I especially liked the actual game sounds, such as screams of monsters, mud bubbling and
gunshot noises.
Those things sounded really great and that added a lot to the atmosphere.
The story of The Gunk is told completely with English voice overs and
the speakers really went out of their way to portray the characters convincingly.
There are also subtitles and menus in numerous languages, including German.
The translation is of high quality.
► The Gunk Test - Opinion and Conclusion The Gunk was released in mid-December 21
for XBox One as well as Xbox Series X and S.
It is also available for PC in the XBox Shop or Windows Store.
It costs € 24.99 or the same $ 24.99. It's also included in the Gamepass from the start,
but it sure won't stay that way forever.
As a PC gamer I really have problems making friends with the Windows Store and also with
the PC Xbox app.
Unfortunately, of all PC gaming platforms, this is the most uncomfortable, bulky, and worst-
to-use experience.
The features offered are also very, very limited.
This game and its developers cannot do anything about this, but the fun of the game still suffers
somewhat due to the poor Microsoft shop.
There are also technical problems, for example with the savegames.
So I got stuck once, either because I was able to maneuver the character into a dead end
or because an event didn't trigger it.
Unfortunately, there is only one overall save that is permanently
autosavet on three slots .
And since I was looking for a solution to the problem for a while,
all three slots were overwritten with this defective state.
So going back was not possible either, I had to start over.
In addition, the game saves the savegames in really confusing places on the hard drive
.
And even if you make copies manually in order to save your game status in case of an emergency,
or possibly to save several rounds, the cloud save synchronization will put
a spanner in the works.
Because this simply irons the cloud savegame via local savegames without asking at the start of the game . So if you really want to do something with multiple
savegames
here, the only thing that helps is disconnecting the internet
while playing The Gunk.
This is extremely inconvenient and quite annoying.
But enough grumbling for now, because The Gunk also has many nice and positive sides.
The many varied variants and combinations of puzzles are particularly
successful.
The story is also quite exciting, the characters are nice characters,
but could possibly use more depth.
The level design is based on a before and after technique.
At first everything is contaminated with mud and black-red-gray and this is gradually replaced while
playing with a beautiful plant world, which mainly consists of rich green and yellow tones
with lots of colorful splashes of color.
The tactical vacuuming of dirt is fun.
You really get a feeling that you are healing a sick world, at least in the beginning.
And often this is not only a means to an end, but also has a tactical function
in many puzzles and fights .
The fights are unusual in that they are never actually solved with shooting.
The weapon is only good for operating a switch from a distance, shooting down seeds or maybe
for a stun.
In conclusion, however, I have to say that The Gunk seemed way too short to me overall.
The fun of the game consists mainly in exploring and looking for solutions to the puzzles
and once you know where and how you are going to get ahead, playing again later
is not very interesting.
Because you experience a very well-made story in a chic world, but since
this only brings 5-6 hours of gaming time and the replay value of the game is unfortunately almost
nonexistent, the price does not suit me.
Even titles with AAA quality and such a short playing time should be criticized, I think.
And The Gunk is stable and exciting, but wait, when it comes up AA, sometimes
it looks more like an indie game.
If I imagine that I had paid just under 25 euros for it, I would probably have been dissatisfied
or even disappointed.
The game definitely works very, very well for Gamepass users.
As a buying game, I think it's a bit disappointing and too expensive.
► The Gunk Review - Rating For a game that an XBox or PC
Gamepass user has included in the subscription price anyway, The Gunk is really great and a special
and exciting adventure.
Here I would like to start with a base rating of 85%.
I would like to deduct 3% for minor technical defects, such as stuttering and a not very user-friendly savegame
system.
If you are not a Gamepass subscriber, I think the price of The Gunk is
extremely too high.
To set a price of 25 euros or dollars
for around 5 hours of playtime is simply too
much, in my opinion.
In this case I would like to set a significant devaluation of 15% for the pricing
.
This brings me to a two-part final result of 82% for Gamepass players and 67
% if you pay the full price.
Since the game and its development are probably finished for the first time, I do
n't see a real chance for a later upgrade through patches.
If you don't care about the price or if it should be lower over time, the
deduction is no longer applicable and it is definitely recommended.
Would you like to save a world from environmental collapse and challenge your head with appealing combination puzzles
?
Or are the high price and jumping around not for you?
Feel free to write your opinion in the comments or in the Community Discord at https://zapzockt.de/discord
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