High On Life comes to us from co-creator of Rick & Morty and Solar Opposites; Justin Roiland. Accompanied by the rest of his team at Squanch Games. They have also released a game previously titled Trover Saves The Universe alongside a couple of VR games, too. Of course, while there are some noticeable similarities to the Rick & Morty universe, they are not officially related in any way.

In High On Life you are fresh out of high school with nothing going for you, that is until an alien cartel makes it aware that they plan to invade and get high off humanity. So, teamed up with your gang of hilariously funny guns, it’s your job to travel across the cosmos and put a stop to the high ranking goons among the cartel.

Experience a colourful, comedic adventure across several different locations including cities, jungles and the hub of the cosmos. Meet new friends you can wield and a multitude of slimy alien enemies along the way.

There’s a lot to love within High On Life, from its wacky NPC characters, the different guns you will acquire over time and the subtle jokes hidden around the world, so long as you don’t mind stopping to smell the roses every now and then. There really is a lot of reward for players who take that extra minute to look around and cover all their bases, whether its from a recurring character showing up, or a hilariously written sign you might not have noticed, it’s crucial to keep your eyes open if you want to get the absolute most out of this one.

A lot of the design choices really do make for a nice touch whilst playing, I don’t really want to elaborate at all in fear of ruining the experience for anyone. High On Life is one of those games that you just need to experience for yourself honestly. Whether these ‘nice touches’ or the humour land for you, is a different story.

After seeing previews of High On Life prior to launch, I was a little worried about the boss battles being a little boring. That worry is squashed now that I’ve got this game in my own hands. That’s not to say the boss battles are revolutionary or worth shouting home about, but they’re damn good fun and crazy, in-keeping with the rest of the game. They do enough to keep it varied and interesting in regards to the boss battles, although playing on medium difficulty they did feel a little bit too easy in places.

Speaking of variety, the G3 minion department fails to deliver. The enemies you meet at the start of the game stay mostly the say throughout the entire run, only slightly changing with more armor or speed, with only one larger type enemy showing up from time to time.

Defeating groups of enemies is really fun however, with 5 different weapons at your disposal, you are spoilt for choice in how to engage. With the added use of having an alternate firing mode, it makes a great recipe for chaos.

You have Kenny, who functions as a basic pistol, with his alt fire mode allowing you to fire a ‘glob shot’ which catapults enemies into the air, allowing them to be juggled by follow up shots. Knifey is quite self explanatory. He functions as your melee weapon but can also help you grapple around. Gus is your shotgun, but can also fires discs that bounce around multiple times between enemies, or use this discs to help you reach new areas by firing them at specific walls. Sweezy is your semi-automatic pistol that functions like the Needler from Halo, but can also fire a bubble that slows down enemies within it. Creature fires little babies that can be used to short circuit doors to progress but can also fire them at enemies to control their minds for a brief period of time.

To accompany the variety in weapons, they all talk and are fully voice acted, making a solo mission across space a little less lonely. Again, heavy on the humour here and they do talk quite a lot, but if this dampens your experience in any way, you can always adjust how frequently (if at all) your sidearm companions communicate.

High On Life won’t be held up next to games like The Last Of Us or Gears of War for it’s visuals, but it’s got a gorgeous colour palette dripped over some cool looking locations. Day one it had a couple of stuttering issues and frame drops every now and then, but Squanch Games swiftly launched their first patch and it’s been running like a dream ever since. Visuals aren’t the focus here, but what they have done with their wacky, cartoony look, works very well for this style of game.

Final Thoughts

High On Life is a divisive one, mainly because of the type of humour (too be expected from Justin Roiland). Humour is one of the biggest standouts from this title, it’s either going to hit or miss when you pick it up. Leaning so much into the humour aspect could potentially push you away from an otherwise great game. If you don’t enjoy this kind of adult messed up humour, then you’ll probably have a hard time trying to force yourself through to the end.

Luckily for Justin and co, I’m part of the target audience here, from weird items in a pawn shop, references to gaming critics and erm… alien cum, it’s definitely something different and in my opinion, great to see a game just go all out crazy and try doing something weird.

There is a lot to enjoy here, the combat serves its purpose with enough variety in weapons and ways to take down enemies, bosses are varied with some being more enjoyable than others. The main star of the show is Kenny, as a Rick and Morty fan, it feels like you’ve got a Morty in handgun form accompanying you on your journey, and I’m here for it. The weapons are great and I really enjoyed how they’ll all have banter between each other and they make up for a lack of a voiced protagonist.

High On Life is available on Xbox Game Pass so, if you’re already a subscriber then you have ‘almost’ nothing to lose by trying this one out for yourself. A divisive one, High On Life is currently sitting at a 61 on Metacritic with 17 reviews, but is in a ‘very positive’ standing on the Steam store page. As with anything of this nature, the best thing is of course to just try it out and make up your own opinion.

If you ask me, High On Life is a hilarious Action-Adventure FPS game that isn’t to be missed.