High on Life (Xbox Series X)
After the rough experiences I had with Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality and Accounting+, I approached High on Life with a fair bit of trepidation. The previous two titles had been produced with the help of Justin Roiland, and it seemed like when he was involved in the development of a game, it would inevitably resort to jokes strained by meandering improvisation due to some sort of fear of silence. What sets High on Life apart though is those two older games were virtual reality games, their very simple gameplay meaning they leaned heavily on the comedy to try and hold your attention. High on Life is quite a creative sci-fi first person shooter though, and while it carries over a few bad habits found in those other games, it’s focus in on the action at times means there are moments where everything is quiet and focused in more on interactivity rather than screaming a string of jokes at the player in hopes of a laugh.
High on Life kicks off with you as a regular human being on a very abnormal day. Aliens land in your small cul de sac and immediately starting smoking one of your elderly neighbors, the interstellar G3 Cartel having learned humans are a highly potent drug out in space. Before you’re rounded up like the other humans though, the weapon of a dead alien calls out to you, quite literally. A small gunk shooting pistol named Kenny is a member of an alien race called Gatlians who all happen to be gun-shaped and great for use as weaponry, and with you setting him free from the cartel, he’s more than happy to be your first weapon in a battle against the G3 Cartel to save humanity. Justin Roiland’s voice can be found quite often throughout High on Life, but Kenny is the most important character he plays, the alien pistol a rather nervous but excitable sort not too different in temperament to Morty from Rick and Morty. One obvious fear about having a gun that can talk with that voice actor is that High on Life will have him constantly throwing jokes out because the game is definitely intending to be a comedy first and foremost, but Kenny and the other weapons you get later on are handled rather well. Reasonably they’ll comment on events they witness and they’ll usually dish out a few lines during combat, but it’s no cacophony and during the moments of exploration they’ll keep their mouths shut. While there is a setting to reduce how much your weapons speak, the only thing that seemed to be a touch incessant was their need to remind the player that their special ability is available, it not only cropping up when its recharge time is over but also just seemingly to remind the player such powers exist.
Kenny is the most important Gatlian to the plot and a fairly useful standard pistol, holding its own even against the game’s bosses. There are a few other gun aliens to find as you take on work as a bounty hunter to eliminate G3 Cartel members though, and not only does each one bring in a new personality to your gradually growing group, but they all feel like they offer a bit more than standard first-person shooter weaponry. Gus works like a shotgun but looks like a frog, and despite being the strongest standard weapon, he’s a rather laidback and amicable sort. He’s not a complete pushover, but since there are many situations in the game where the gun does the talking for you, Gus can be the friendly voice who actually seems to want to understand the people you’re meeting as you hop between planets hunting down targets. Sweezy is an amusing inverse, the automatic weapon pretty much done with the idea of the adventure from the get-go and approaching most situations with hostility and disinterest. If you’re having enough of some alien’s shtick, Sweezy will be right there with you to provide some comedic insults. Creature is perhaps the most interesting personality though, his child-like innocence giving him an odd angle on situations since he legitimately believes the horrible experiments the cartel did on him somehow lead to him becoming their friend. He’ll happily call out to a boss to reminisce wistfully about the times they rewired his brain, but he seems genuinely kind and prone to little flights of fancy like when he tries to imitate a hard-boiled detective during some investigative portions. The fact that they have different reactions to characters and unique quips in battle can give you a reason to favor their use beyond their utility in battle, and since none of them really ramble on too much, they can build up some camaraderie through frequent chatter without being annoying.
Gus and Sweezy might have sounded like typical guns with how little detail I gave on their function, but all of the weapons have something special beyond typical shots. Creature is the most unique, firing off little alien babies that run towards enemies to swarm them, but Gus’s shotgun shot is enhanced by the fact you can also vacuum enemies towards you to ensure the blast lands at close range. Skeezy’s automatic fire actually involves crystal projectiles, their damage really coming from when you choose to burst them rather than just needing to hit the enemy at all to hurt. What’s more, the four weapons all feature “Trick Holes”, this being a special function that works both in battle and in the game’s fairly abundant navigation puzzles. Gus again is a good example of the game’s inventiveness, his Trick Hole being to fire a bouncing saw that will dig into walls to serve as platforms but you can also batter it back into an enemy repeatedly with your knife. That knife, incidentally, is named Knifey, a bloodthirsty sort that is easy to use for melee strikes and also works as a grappling hook. Kenny even has his Glob Shot that you can bounce off surfaces or launch foes into the air for follow-up shots while it also works to move platforms into position, the Gatlians alone feeling like they would have been a wonderful draw for players looking for something more from a first-person shooter set in space.
All your weapons have unlimited ammunition, only reloading or waiting for Trick Holes to charge really slowing down your effectiveness, but you also gradually get additional movement options to help you traverse the game’s fairly well built battlegrounds. A quick burst dodge, a power slide, even a jetpack eventually give you the means to cross ground quickly and avoid trouble, Knifey’s hook feature even giving you ways to zip around since most structures have latch points. This can lead to some fairly fast-paced action from the player, enemies rarely able to move in ways that will keep up but you’re better able to handle large groupings of G3 Cartel grunts because of your mobility. The health that rejuvenates if you avoid damage definitely benefits from a strong movement systems as well, but again these tools useful in battle transfer over very well to exploring alien environments. Areas like the beautiful jungles of Zephyr with its relaxed music stand out from the bustling hub of Blim City, and even though the range of planets is small, there is still a range of locations like the desert world having barren wastes while also featuring a bustling space port. Most exploration outside of necessary navigation will involve opening chests for collectibles or more likely the game’s currency, Pesos. Pesos can buy you upgrades to your movement gear and weapons so it definitely pays to explore, Squanch Games once again showing a rather intelligent approach to designing a game that still works even if none of the humor happens to hit your funny bone.
If there is one spot that seems to come up short mechanically, it’s the range of enemies. The G3 Cartel is the primary opposition throughout the adventure but they don’t seem to have too many unique aliens in their employ for the rank and file troops. A small less capable grunt and a tall and smart rifleman that can take a hit will be seen constantly throughout the adventure, the two types not even varying up their weaponry much from start to finish. They’ll get back-up from things like red guys who charge in to batter you or snipers, and most planets have some weak wildlife that will try to swarm you but can attack the other side too. It can feel at times you’re given a wonderful range of Gatlians to work with but little that demands creative use of them. You are often give bounty hunter missions in batches where you can tackle them in the order you choose though so perhaps there was some fear of imbalance if the player were to blindly pick the harder ones first, but there is still some escalation so not every gunfight is a cakewalk. Bosses do usually start necessitating strong use of your movement abilities and different guns can prove to be remarkably effective, but many bosses do have strong central ideas to make them more interesting than just being tougher targets. One boss is made up of three smaller aliens that can split up and execute unique attacks all at once, the player wanting to eliminate the peskier parts so they don’t need to work so hard to survive. The final boss is undone a touch by the means they give you to attack him but he compensates by throwing out so many attacks you’ll be zipping all around still working to survive. Many of the bosses have amusing personalities that are built up on the way to the fight as well, the game’s penultimate boss particularly creative in the psychedelic ways their fight twists dimensions while also good for cuing some comedic asides.
High on Life doesn’t handle its humor perfectly either though, and unlike the battles it’s not something that necessarily improves in time. The good news is that while there are definitely moments where a character is constantly talking and you can’t get rid of them, the intent is to be annoying, but there are many times you’ll come across a scene or character where, if you allow it to play out, it will start to resort to directionless rambling about the same subject. It appears that the voice actors were allowed to improvise but also not given too much direction beyond a starting point, and quite often this seems to lead to reiteration or laser focusing in on uninteresting small details. The jokes that would work if they were quick and snappy can drag on, but sometimes, whether that happens or not is in your hands. You may hear an enemy talking with his back to you and they’ll just keep going on and on if you don’t kill them, or maybe you’ll see the T.V.s in Blim City playing strange commercials that you don’t necessarily need to stop and watch. The abundance of these optional moments does lead to the issue of it being hard to tell where the humor has potential though. There are definitely times where the joke is how long the character keeps talking that would work if it was a far less common occurrence and others can sometimes find a second wind when it seems a voice actor had a sudden spark of inspiration, but crowding the field with jokes that go nowhere makes it harder to want to invest your interest in the ones that might have potential. If you never slow down to speak with aliens or eavesdrop then you’ll likely have a funnier experience, but some of the best jokes are unfortunately missed or weakened because they didn’t tighten the script during those comedic moments.
THE VERDICT: High on Life rides high on the creativity and range the Gatlian weapons bring to the table. Their flexible functions, distinct personalities, and use alongside your navigational upgrades make High on Life an enjoyable first-person shooter with plenty of combat and exploration potential. Enemies aren’t as robust though boss fights are still appropriately unique, and the environments you visit still keep you interested in the bounty hunting adventure to stop humanity from getting smoked. It is a shame that the game sabotages some of its own humor at times because it can’t help but grind some jokes into the dust, but there’s still enough effective comedy that the game will likely leave you with a good amount of laughs to balance out the groans.
And so, I give High on Life for Xbox Series X…
A GOOD rating. While Squanch Games exists because of Justin Roiland, I’m a bit upset they had to create this game under his yoke. There is a strong sense of direction and creativity when it comes to so much of the experience before Roiland’s trademark humor start throwing in shock value jokes that drag on past the point they worked and improvisational rambles that weren’t amusing to start and never reach a good destination. It’s easy for a character like Creature to be endearing, and even Gene, the bounty hunter who helps the player find their footing in the broader universe, balances out his gross and offensive actions with a true personality. Elsewhere though you run into characters trying to craft humor without thought or purpose, and it’s a shame you have to weed through the ineffective moments to find some of the game’s best laughs. If you could just push forward and focus on the gameplay though the main path is well built to entertain in both writing and action, although the enemies seem to be a bit of a mismatch for the incredible freedom you’re given in movement and attack options. They’ll hold their own so that you can still play with your tools long enough to be entertained, and making each gun’s Trick Hole also suitable for interacting with the environment ensures the game has some nice natural rises and falls in terms of action and player-led activities. There are some moments of comedic play as well, one moment is a paper-filing minigame presented with the glitz of something more exciting, and there are fun character concepts that work because you’re interacting with them to a reasonable degree rather than essentially listening to a weak stand-up routine. High on Life would need a broader and more effective range of enemy gunmen to shine brighter, but simply a strong editor in terms of the jokes presented would really help the game keep a strong energy throughout so you can keep engaging with the effective action instead of sometimes stopping to test if the latest long ramble might head somewhere worth hearing.
High on Life doesn’t put many annoying ideas in your path as barriers and it has times when it pulls back and just lets you enjoy the action or well-scripted interactions, so it is worth soldiering through the moments it squanders its strengths to instead pursue low brow directionless prattle. Perhaps with Justin Roiland leaving Squanch Games that brand of humor might subside enough that the more successful writing can thrive in a potential follow-up. There is a clearly talented design team at work here with a lot of ideas on how to mix up shooting game mechanics, but it is also possible the team was picked because they were like-minded when it came to humor. High on Life’s humor is still likely to be the deal maker or deal breaker and there is a lot to love, but while it remains genuinely entertaining and worthwhile to play, you never know when you’ll get end up with chaff when looking for wit.