If you were looking for a funny, action packed shooter with very witty humour, a good story and a creative yet basic combat system that turns very quickly into a repetitive, boring experience - with combat sections repeating themselves, very little variety in enemies, jokes and humour that get very old, very quickly and a story that slowly turns into an inspired Rick and Morty episode, then High on Life will be for you.
High on life puts you in the shoes of a teenager being babysat by his sister while your parents are away on vacation. She's busy planning a wild party while you're quietly playing your favourite video game where your divorce lawyer, who reminds you multiple times throughout the game that he IS YOUR BEST divorce lawyer, guides you through an alien spaceship as you combat your exe's alien boyfriends. Things turn south as, back in the real world, earth is invaded by an alien drug cartel called the G3, who are abducting humans to use as drugs, they end up betraying one of their members and leave the planet whilst their minions start abducting. This is where you are introduced to Kenny, a stammering, humorous pistol voiced by Justin Roiland. Together, along with your sister, you find a former alien bounty hunter, borrow his gear and hunt down each members of the G3 cartel, gaining new weapons along the way.
The story itself starts off well but quickly devolves into the same basic pattern; Select a Bounty, head to the planet, listen to Justin Roiland, another gun or your bounty suit talk for about five minutes about a particular level or person whilst going through the same humorous style you see in Rick and Morty with no real end in sight with stammers included, find an NPC who, again, talks for five minutes about nothing with stammers thrown into the mix, solve a puzzle, find the boss, listen to the boss stammer for another five minutes about why they're badass, kill them, take their gun, listen to Justin Roiland, you guessed it, stammer and talk about how cool you were with random comparisons for another five minutes and repeat. Don't get me wrong, it was funny at first with a few good laughs here and there but it very quickly got old and almost felt like it was massive filler for the game. I understand this is Justin Roilands humour but it almost felt like it was the only joke in the game. To prevent over talking though, the game does have an option to prevent the guns from overtalking in combat but doesn't really do much for the rest of the game.
The gameplay itself though is very smooth with shooting and manoeuvres feeling slick, arenas feeling generous with their enemy numbers and a nice variety of weapons to choose from which helps create a nice balance and also provides some creativity for enemy takedowns. Though it does feel like sometimes the game repeats itself with areas where you're just battling the same enemies over and over again on different planets but does feel minor in comparison to the combat. However, it would feel nice to have a little bit more variety in terms of enemies as it did get to a point where you didn't really have to guess what enemy you were fighting next.
Customisation felt very limited and the character selection at the beginning of the level felt unnecessary as you were then only limited to upgrades and cosmetics for your armour.
The art style is what you would expect a game by Justin Roiland to look like; colourful, cartoonish and fun with some sections of the game being aesthetically pleasing.
Overall, the game is enjoyable for those who are fans of Justin Roiland's work but can admit that it can be very repetitive and tiring to listen to the same style of joke repeated and unfortunately doesn't do the gameplay any justice but it's still worth a try for the combat and the art style.
