Contrary to what the state of my real world home might imply i find something oh so satisfying about cleaning up in video games that makes the gunk particularly appealing as its linear campaign is packed full of opportunities to methodically transform a muck-covered alien planet back into a pristine and beautiful landscape as the first 3d game from image informed games best known for its excellent steam world series the gunk's fairly brief journey doesn't do a whole lot to expand on its shallow but consistently amusing concept but it's still a lot of fun to clear away the goop blanketing its world and uncover the grounded sci-fi story told there oh look at these inscriptions hey bex how are your skills in uh ancient alien alphabets huh the gunk puts you in control of the bold and optimistic space explorer ronnie accompanied by her more cautious and serious partner bex as they land on an unknown alien world in search of resources to scavenge what they find instead is a planet where pockets of green energy and the life around them are being stifled by blobs of seemingly malicious black ooze armed with a robot vacuum hand its roughly four hour campaign has you exploring the planet and sucking up the gunk as the pair pieces together the cause behind it it's a pretty cool tale it's a somewhat straightforward one and has some fairly poignant messages about the state of our own planet as well.
The vast majority of this adventure is spent hopping around small puzzle areas usually getting rid of all the gunk you can see we're trying to reach a switch in order to open up the next route all right here we go you'll be holding down the right trigger a lot as you suck up every blob in sight and cleaning an entire area will cause it to miraculously spring back to life in a way that's always satisfying the gunk is a really lovely game both in its vibrant alien terrain and the fantastic relaxed soundtrack that makes wandering those areas a beautifully meditative exercise at times the actual platforming and puzzles themselves are fun too if not necessarily complex in a way that would ever give something like a mario game a run for its money it never stops being entertaining to clear out a bunch of gunk in order to allow a plant to grow and help you get up a ledge or use a switch to twist a platform into the correct orientation you need to get across a gap there's also some extremely light combat scattered throughout those platforming sections in the form of small gunk monsters you can destroy by sucking up and then shooting back out as well as slightly larger ones that are stuck in place firing rocks at you until you can get up close and rip them off their base while each area succeeds at keeping these simple activitie interesting with new ideas be that constantly spinning platforms or enemies in tricky to reach places they're never made overly exciting either that's not a huge surprise when your only movement mechanics are pretty much walk and jump and your combat options are largely limited to vacuuming or a slowly recharging stun blast that's more.
Commonly used to shoot puzzle objects outside of combat than it is to hit enemies but the general vibe of the gunk's world undoubtedly helps fillsome of the mechanical gap that may have otherwise started to feel tedious deeper in that includes the banter between ronnie and bex as they unravel this planet's story which sells the caring relationship between them well hey you should come with me for once let's adventure together in these shoes now it's also fun to scour each new area for collectible crafting materials which you can then take back to your ship and trade in for mostly useful new upgrades.
These range from increasing your vacuum speed to more significant powers like a lure that will briefly distract enemies an ability that could have been helpful were combat not so simple that it never really felt like something i needed any help with still the upgrades are a nice reward for checking every corner and going down every optional route which are always fairly short but still make your otherwise linear path feel like it's hiding a few secrets here and there that said you'll unlock all the upgrades easily enough if you're diligent about sucking up any materials you see making your crafting choices feel more like passive leveling rather than any sort of actual customization the gunk is a fun little platforming adventure full of malicious messes that are plenty satisfying to clean up the small twists each new area puts on its fairly simple mechanics never drastically shakes up its amusing formula of vacuuming the landscape and then hopping to the next location but an enticing story and a beautiful sense of style keep the cleanup process consistently entertaining throughout its relatively brief campaign for more adventuring across alien locales checkout our reviews of marvel's guardians of the galaxy or halo infinite and for everything else keep it right here.
Nice 👍
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