High on Life has a recognizable and, to some extent, unique style. It’s about Justin Roiland, creator of Rick and Morty. His hand is felt in every aspect of this shooter. But that’s just something that went right, and everything else is disgusting.
It’s funny to see how High on Life tries to be like DOOM or Wolfenstein himself, but falls apart in the middle. The game tries to entertain not with shooting and gameplay, but with team Roiland’s flat jokes on the subject of intercourse, feces and alien semen tanks.
The introduction tells the story of a simple American teenager whose measured life of acne, partying and first acquaintance with the opposite sex is interrupted by an alien invasion. The G3 cartel aliens suddenly discovered that people can be smoked, and therefore are very expensive on the black market.
In all the confusion, our glorious protagonist manages to acquire a talking gun named Kenny, and after some time becomes one of the most dangerous bounty hunters, eliminating one by one the leaders of the cartel in an attempt to save the Earth and humanity .
The storyline of High on Life doesn’t even try the high stuff and follows Roiland’s already proven pattern: throwing nonsense in the hope that it will catch on and make the viewer laugh. Here is the romance of the protagonist’s sister who came out of nowhere with an alien guy, as well as the eternal whining of the crippled Jen, from whom the hero borrowed a space suit for he-ce adventures there are many. These separate stories in no way shift the plot or add depth to it, instead consuming time.
Often the resolution of disputes that have arisen between minor characters falls to the main character and cannot be missed. And the dialogues are endless. Roiland’s team seems to want to tell a joke, but when they realize that the punchline won’t make the listener laugh, they continue drawing, making it sillier and more ridiculous.
In between missions, players can roam the alien metropolis and collect chests of credits to buy upgrades. In order for such walks not to get tired, Roiland’s team decided to diversify them a little with the opportunity to communicate with the townspeople, but it turned out as always.
The protagonist will be asked to guard the bike, and will then be given a nine-story mat when it is successfully stolen; offer to purchase an alien semen tank; settle a dispute between two talking barriers by trying to figure out which one is prettier. These little stories, like discussions of minor characters, take time.
For some reason, the developer thinks that games can be made on the same principle as the animated series. In Rick and Morty, the madness and nonsensical dialogue, with made-up words at the moment, is able to bring a smile and is not tiring in any way – each episode lasts just over 20 minutes. Here is a shooter for 10 hours, half of which the protagonist stands and listens to jokes, as if written by children who have discovered a wealth of profanity.
What cannot be taken away from the game is good style. Each location in High on Life has a distinct style: a dense jungle, a futuristic metropolis, or a hot, rat-infested desert. The problem is that often within the same business you’ll have to visit the same location two or three times — and sometimes the other way, just with a jetpack or other tool. Yes, wandering in circles is sometimes rewarded with a chance to stumble upon a secret, but often you just want to keep going.
The protagonist’s arsenal consists of four talking pistols, representatives of the so-called Gatlins. Kenny is a pistol, voiced by Roiland himself, which turns into an analogue of a grenade launcher in an alternate mode. As the story progresses, the Gus shotgun will appear, capable of attracting enemies to itself and firing circular saws. A replica of Halo’s needle gun, Sweezy can shoot time-stopping bubbles. The creature, the ultimate gatlin, produces vile creatures that can activate generators and bite enemies. There is also a bloodthirsty Knaifi knife – his favorite pastime is gouging out the eyes of opponents. With the help of him, they will also allow you to open chests and grab all sorts of platforms and ledges – the knife can turn into a flexible tentacle.
Each Gatlin’s alternate firing modes not only aid in combat, but can also be used to reach previously inaccessible locations. From Gus’s own disks in certain places, you can build a ladder, and Kenny’s grenades activate analogues of catapults that can throw the hero to the other side of the map.
By the middle of the game, every skirmish with opponents turns into a veritable bacchanalia when you try to use each Gatlin in turn. It’s a shame that the varieties of enemies in High on Life are much smaller than the ways to take them out.
Gatlins and haters chat non-stop. At some point she begins not only to tire, but also to annoy. As if it realizes that no one wants to hear chatter 90% of the time, the game has an option that reduces the amount of chatter per minute of screen time, but it either doesn’t work, or in the second third of the game no one is shut up for a second. Tip: try playing with headphones on and take them off your ears as soon as you see that, for example, Kenny gets oxygen in his mouth to start talking about something again.
Halfway through, High on Life runs out of ideas and falls into reruns. It’s ironic, because in one of the missions the game seems to make fun of the monotony and makes you do boring sorting of documents, made in the form of a mini-game.
Diagnosis
Nearly the entire budget of High on Life went to Roiland’s jokes about sexual intercourse and the alien seed, after which Squanch Games was left with only the money for a few glowing locations, a jetpack and a bubble-shooting needle gun that stop time.
Pros
- One joke out of a hundred will still make you laugh
- Bright places
- Cool fonts and gatlin design
- The game is on Game Pass
Contra
- Out of a hundred jokes, only one will make you laugh
- endless talk
- Primitive texture
- monotonous music
- Monotonous enemies
- Constant backtracking
