#THE GUNK REVIEW SERIES#
#THE GUNK REVIEW WINDOWS#

The voice actors do a great job and the banter between them works pretty well. In the sound department there is not much to say. Not sure why but that section always tripped everything up and basically slowed the game to a few fps for a few seconds. I played with 4K/ultra settings (even though my laptop is “just” 1440p) and the game ran perfect except for a a few hiccups in the last level when you travel up an elevator. It is obvious this game was made for consoles as there is basically no options at all to change anything except resolution and a quality setting which doesn’t tell you what it does. All you see is the character you are controlling, Rani, in a third person view. There is nothing in the screen that shows any extra information (map, compass, health etc). One thing I really like is that the game does not have any HUD at all. The game has a bunch of different areas, each with a pretty distinct look from jungle to abandoned mines and even a wasteland where everything is grey and dead.’ When you get rid of the Gunk the colors flow back and you get treated with a colorful and beautiful vista. The premise with the game is that the Gunk has suppressed all life which means it is grey and dull. I wouldn’t say it is the most beautiful game I played but it isn’t ugly either.

#THE GUNK REVIEW WINDOWS#

I played the game on a Windows Laptop (Asus Zephyrus G15 with Ryzen 5900HS and Nvidia RTX3080 Mobile GPU).

#THE GUNK REVIEW SERIES#

The game is out for Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series S|X. The Graphics and Soundīefore we go into the game play let’s focus a bit on the looks and sound of the game.

I won’t spoil the story more except that in the end the game becomes a rescue mission for a whole alien civilization. Things are of course not as they seem and they soon realise the planet is overrun by something they name The Gunk. They of course are down on their luck and really need to score to not risk loosing their ship. You follow two space haulers that are visiting a planet where they picked up a faint energy signal. Why am I bringing this up when reviewing the new game The Gunk from the Swedish studio Thunderful? Well, I finished this game. This means that even for a game I enjoy after a while I just loose interest or worse, come back 2-3 months later and realize I will never be able to get back into the game again and just leave it. The problem for me is that a lot of game companies decided that their games need to be a service and be brimming with content (looking at you Ubisoft!). At 51 with 2 kids and as tech lead at a company my time for gaming has to compete with lots of other stuff including coaching my kids in socker as well as other hobbies as 3D printing. Most of all I do not have the time any longer.

The gunk review