The Gunk

The Gunk is a satisfying puzzle-adventure game where two down-on-their-luck space scrappers must help save an alien planet from a destructive black goo. The combat in The Gunk does feel frustratingly underbaked, but solid story pacing and excellent puzzle challenges help overshadow the struggle.

This is an astonishingly immersive and good-natured fable, and we relished returning to it whenever we were away. It may not be long, it may not do anything groundbreaking, but The Gunk radiated good feelings whenever we picked up the pad.

The Gunk invites us to a world of science fiction, surrounded by adventure, exploration and platforms. It is a sincere game, without great pretensions, that only wants to show its art, world and sensations when playing it.

A short, sharp 3D action-adventure that keeps things simple in a gorgeous world and makes a great case for Game Pass as a delivery vehicle for bingeable and low-investment experiences.

The Gunk is a fun and engaging indie title with a simple and addicting gameplay. The environmental puzzles are many and always different, well implemented within the experience.

Short as it may be, my time with The Gunk has been wonderful. Image & Form’s move into the 3D realm has solidified it as a truly talented developer – and this may just be its best game yet. Beautiful, satisfying and engaging from start to finish, The Gunk is definitely worth getting stuck into.

The Gunk is an enjoyable adventure with beautiful visuals, whose core gameplay mechanics fall a bit short.

Though it doesn't have all the perks and features of bigger games, The Gunk remains gorgeous and engaging. A short but sweet adventure full of puzzles and fantastic scenery.

The Gunk is a simple and short proposal, but it knows how to entertain with a gameplay focused on exploration.

The Gunk is a little hidden gem that, despite not feeling innovative or deep, is able to entertain and move the player.

For all the neat freaks out there, this one’s for you.

The Gunk is a difficult game to label, but an easy one to enjoy. Whether you’re sucking up a load of the titular gunk to help bring an alien world back to life, or listening to an engaging back and forth between the game’s main characters, there’s plenty to like here, even if it doesn’t quite live up to its early potential.

The Gunk is game full of charm, thanks especially to its wonderful art direction and the colorful alien world it created. Unfortunately, despite its short duration The Gunk does not manage to carry this sense of wonder all the way to the end, due to repetitiveness of environments and a gameplay that ends up being far too simplistic. It’s still a valid title, especially for younger players; it just needed a little more to truly shine.

The Gunk is a perfect example of a developer that can make tired mechanical tropes sing with master craftmanship.

The Gunk is a classic-style platformer adventure focused on exploration and puzzles that leaves a good feeling in its gameplay. However, it presents certain mismatches in its control and its main mechanics, in addition to a conservative technological level.

We enjoyed exploration, puzzles and platforming in The Gunk. Image & Form Games delivers an interesting adventure set in a beautiful planet, which feels undeveloped in other aspects such as combat or equipment improvements.

The creators of the Steamworld universe stepped out of their comfort zone for the first time - and it’s a solid step indeed. The Gunk is visually stunning and its central mechanism, vacuuming the titular substance off the ground, is really well done. The combat, though, is disappointing, as is the progression system.

While the overall offering here feels fresh, all of the various elements of The Gunk have been done before. From the puzzle solving of various Tomb Raider titles to the Uncharted vibe of the lush backdrops and the Luigi-style hoovering up, none of it individually has been done better than the many times before. But as a package, this is a nicely put-together game and a great little addition to the Game Pass’s ever-growing library.

Ultimately, it’s hard to give The Gunk a strong recommendation. It’s a very old-fashioned game, one that feels like it wouldn’t have truly stood out even in the era it feels like it belongs to. Despite likable characters, the story doesn’t really satisfy either. The core mechanics just plain work, though, and its short length doesn’t overstay its welcome. While it feels like the development team squandered the potential for more, those who can check it out without a significant investment will find a few fun hours. Perfect for Game Pass, indeed.

In just a fraction of the time it would take another game, The Gunk manages to instil the full sense of exploring an unknown planet to its core. [Issue#367, p.110]

The Gunk is a very good independent title that offers graphics that have nothing to envy to big AAA productions. It's a shame though that the game only lasts 5 hours, that the gameplay doesn't evolve much and that it lacks epic moments. Fortunately, it's released on Xbox Game Pass and that fixes a lot of issues.

While not perfect, The Gunk is a fun game that carries a great and important message. We need to save our environment. A compelling story, relaxing yet sometimes boring gameplay, and stunning visuals.

The Gunk never really falters at any point during its decidedly short runtime, but also fails to do anything to push itself above a crowded group of peers in the action-platformer genre.

The Gunk would have deserved a little more structure and background vision: perhaps a better elaborated and refined gameplay, a dose of extra variety and last but not least a more incisive writing - because beyond the wonderful lyricism of the column sonorous it is complicated to become seriously passionate about the events narrated. Too bad, because with a different attention the outcome of this extraterrestrial outing would have proved much more memorable.

The Gunk deserves a fair bit of criticism and only a little unreserved praise. The connection between the characters holds up the story, sucking up goo is strangely satisfying, and the mechanics work as intended. However, I wish the world felt more distinctive and better realized. The environment has the potential to be a vibrant kaleidoscope with brilliant hues and unearthly forms. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite hit that mark. All said, The Gunk is a competent romp through space, but not a stellar one.

The Gunk is an entertaining adventure with a message about pollution and industrialisation. with a likeable protagonist. The pacing is a little drawn out toward the end of the six to seven hour journey, but there's a great visual style and an enjoyable game to experience.

The Gunk is a competent product, but it feels very risk-adverse and derivative. You’ve seen and played elements of this game before. It can be fun for a while, but you soon realize that The Gunk has a limited vocabulary and spends too much of its time amicably repeating itself. Instead of being the foundation for something grander, The Gunk is satisfied to make its exploration and simple mechanics the entire game. As a Game Pass product, however, it’s not hard to cautiously recommend The Gunk as a pleasant enough diversion.

The Gunk is a slippery one to pin down. It doesn’t get too bogged down in any major flaws, but it doesn’t do much to surprise either, sticking to adventuring basics, and a small toolset of abilities. That said, there is some good characterization here, and whether it ties into the SteamWorld universe or takes its own branch, it would be great to see Rani and Becks back for a more grand adventure.

What we get when all’s said and performed in step with The Gunk’s level design, is a fleeting experience really only good for the Achievements (your first G is a whopping 50, and this rarely lets up), or for a chilled and relaxed romp through an alien world whose FernGulley storyline is face-slappingly on-the-nose. I mean, it’s actually quite fun, despite Rani’s overly contextual Mepsipax design, which is entirely at odds with everything I’ve gunked at you here, but it did suck me in.

The Gunk has to rely mainly on its beautiful game world and nicely written dialogues. Those are unfortunately just not good enough to compensate for the faltering story and lack of challenging battles or puzzles.

More seductive in its first part, The Gunk offers a pleasant exploration in sumptuous settings which lose their luster a little over the course of the journey; it also fails to renew itself in the challenges and puzzles it houses. This short adventure of 6 to 7 hours only is appreciated in the tranquility of its experience, its narrative potential and its beautiful dubbing. But difficult to be fully excited after spending long hours sucking up to abundant parasites.

Not exactly the kind of game we were expecting from this team. While relaxing and inspired at times, too many aspects of The Gunk are quite mediocre, or too simplistic to really allow the game to shine.

What I experienced was a fun but short and undercooked title. It needed much more depth and a greater range of difficulty. None of the aliens will test you and this undermines the difficulty. I wish the developers had worked on the resource management and upgrade system some more. If this had been explored, the gameplay would be exponentially better. All things considered, I enjoyed it, but I wanted much more.

The Gunk has its flaws, but it's still a mostly enjoyable way to spend a few hours. It's a short but sweet adventure with gameplay reminiscent of PS2-era platforming games and so fans of the genre should certainly give it a look through Xbox Game Pass.

Too familiar, too easy, and too short but if you’re looking for an undemanding time waster on Game Pass you can certainly do worse than The Gunk.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with The Gunk. It works from a technical standpoint and it isn’t the worst way you can spend about five hours of your time. But I just can’t muster up any sort of authentic excitement about it. If it were funnier or cleverer or more challenging, I could maybe start to see it as a title I could recommend. But as it is, the best I can do is pay it that slightly backhanded compliment of saying it’s perfect for Game Pass.

The Gunk is a nice game you could spend a couple of evenings with and then move on. It’s lacking challenge and is pretty short, but the characters and overall feeling of exploring an alien planet make it still worth your time. If nothing else, it’s an interesting experience that is hard to pigeonhole into any one genre.

The Gunk has a fantastic setting and lovely characters, but ultimately the gameplay is lacking.

The Gunk is a game that you will probably soon forget. The journey of discovery is linear and the things you discover are never really exciting. The facial animations and cliché gameplay make the game feel like a PlayStation 2 remaster, the low difficulty takes all the tension away and the story has little to do with it. It is a nice entry-level game for people who have less gaming experience.