Source: Xbox
At first glance, many of us wrote off High On Life as a shallow shooter with cheap comedy, relying entirely on the gimmick of a talking gun. It turns out that this couldn’t be further from the truth and there is much more to High On Life than meets the eye.
Plot and background
High On Life comes from ‘Rick and Morty’ co-creator Justin Roiland’s development studio, Squanch Games. It is a colorful, quirky first person shooter set in a sci-fi universe. After an alien cartel invades Earth to kidnap humans to use them as a drug, the player finds a talking gun by the name of Kenny. This blue, loud-mouthed pistol is portrayed by Justin Roiland himself and his distinctive voice is instantly recognizable. As Earth falls to the invaders, Kenny helps you to teleport your house to an alien location called Blim City.
Source: Xbox
He subsequently explains that he belongs to a race of sentient weapons called the Gatlians and that his entire kind have been enslaved by the cartel. With a common enemy, Kenny and the player team up to save both humanity and the Gatlians. They do this by contacting a once great bounty hunter called Gene Zaroothian in Blim City. It turns out that Gene is a washed up shadow of his former self, essentially living on a park bench. Reluctantly, he agrees to mentor you in exchange for a roof over his head in your house, leading to some hilarious clashes with the player’s sister and Kenny.
Gene sets up a teleporter in your home, allowing you to warp to the interplanetary locations of the six G3 cartel members. Your goal is now laid out before you, to take out each G3 member one by one, saving humanity and Kenny’s friends in the process.
While it all seems relatively straightforward at first, there are some developments throughout the story that we do not want to spoil here, but trust that they add a lot of gravity to the overall experience.
Gameplay and visuals
As you move through the world, you will frequently interact with a wide variety of eccentric aliens. They will crack jokes, tell ridiculous stories or just downright insult you. Combine this with the constant narration from the Gatlians in your inventory and you get a very entertaining experience that is often funny, shocking or bizarre. Despite most of the jokes landing for us, there were definitely some misses here and there.This is slightly hindered by some sections where the non-stop, irritating dialogue became slightly annoying.
We were surprised to discover that High On Life’s levels are essentially metroidvania in their design, requiring you to circle back to them after you acquire different abilities to access new areas, secrets and collectibles. Most of these abilities come in the form of a secondary fire that the Gatlians possess.
For example, the murderous Australian knife doubles as a sort of grapple, allowing you to navigate ziplines and whip up to hard to reach platforms. All of the talking guns in the game have a secondary fire ability that will offer dual utility in damaging enemies and navigating the environments. With these abilities you can move platforms, create new ones by firing saw blades into walls, temporarily slow time and more. As you defeat the different cartel members, you will acquire new Gatlian guns, each with their own voice actor and distinct personality. It is mind blowing to consider that each of them reacts to the events of the game in a unique way, so you will likely have a different experience depending on which gun you have equipped in any given scenario.
Source: Xbox
Levels play out in mostly the same way. You spawn into a planet, fight off hordes of aliens and then confront the boss at the end. There are a combination of combat, platforming and humorous story sections that keep things fairly fresh across the game’s roughly 10 hour campaign.
All of this is presented in a simplistic but colorful graphical style, which never gets too crazy in terms of textures. Despite this, the levels are absolutely packed with detail and there are plenty of funny easter eggs, references and gags to discover just from looking around. There are also some great, quirky additions here that we won’t entirely spoil but as an example there are a number of full length movies that are fully watchable in-game.
Additional features
So there is an interesting story, hilarious cast of characters and some surprisingly good gameplay but it doesn’t stop there in High On Life. Throughout the game, you will find a series of hidden chests that will either net you some currency or collectibles. This currency can be used to purchase upgrades to your weapons or kit, including a jetpack that is incredibly fun to use.
You may also encounter a shady NPC in Blim City who will sell you a series of ‘warp drives’. These items can be used to spawn in a series of varied mini-locations ripped from the fabric of other realities. This hilarious selection of side content is completely worth experiencing for the additional currency they reward alongside some completely absurd scenarios.
Source: Xbox
Conclusion
High On Life is a completely unexpected and wonderful video game that combines some hilarious writing, eccentric characters and great gameplay to become one of the best releases of 2022. It is a complete breath of fresh air in the first person shooter genre and stirs in elements of metroidvania titles to satisfying effect. Just as the gameplay begins to feel stale, you are introduced to another Gatlian or movement ability that shakes things up and the pacing is excellent throughout.
Despite all of its good qualities, there are a number of frustrations that it presents. Inevitably when it is pumping in this amount of humor, some of it isn’t going to land. These moments are eye-rolling at best and completely annoying worst, but your experience may vary.
By the time the credits rolled on High On Life after around 10 hours, we were extremely satisfied with this messy, hysterical and fun game.
