High on Life
High on life is a simple game, with a simple concept. You are a teenage boy that needs to save the world for an aliens. The magic of this game isn’t in its simplicity but in its creativity in its worlds and writing. I was really impressed by the creativity of the worlds and characters. Right now the gaming industry is suffering from sequelitis. Everyone is making a sequel or a spiritual sequel that doesn’t feel like it lives up to the original. Its a breath of fresh air to play in a original world with original characters even if the main plot is basic. Afterall its suppose to be the journey not the destination.
Right off the bat this game is for fans of Rick and Morty. Now if you don’t know what Rick and Morty is or the only thing you know is the toxic fan base that went full shithead with the McDonald dipping sauce, I can attests that the behavior of its fans isn’t copied from its content there are just dumb people out there looking for attention. The main plot arc of Rick and Morty deals with grief, depression, guilt and overall family. High on life touches on all these themes just not as deep as the a 6 season tv show goes.
The game starts with you gaming on your PC and your sister planning a mega party since the parents are gone for the weekend. Once introductions are done and you step out side and alien invasion begins and you find yourself befriending a sentient gun that takes you on an adventure of being a intergalactic bounty hunter taking down the drug cartel that has found humans to be the best drug in the galaxy and have started harvesting earth.
The gameplay is simple with you gathering new weapons as you progress. Each weapon has basically two fire modes and act from pistol, shotgun, SMG, to a weird mind control baby launcher. This is where the creativity shines and the character commentary from the guns. Where the game may feel lacking is in the enemy design that basically are 2-3 different types of aliens covered in goop suits or tech suits. Over time these enemies get stronger and will require the proper usage of your arsenal to handle the large groups you have to handle in late gameplay. But it lacks creativity beyond that. The real creative art went into your arsenal and the main bosses that deliver on interesting boss fights and one psychedelic trip trying to be as cleaver as psycho mantis. Overall it was a fun ride.
Unfortunately, its not a perfect game and does have a few flaws. One of them being that the main joy of this game is the easter eggs, but they can be completely missed in a playthrough and one major game breaking bug that I ran across. The interesting thing is that the game breaking bug is after you beat the main story. Like most games like this there is a bit of a collectathon if you want to 100% and the game is clearly designed to give you access to areas after you beat it to continue exploring outside the golden path find all the easter eggs. Unfortunately, I found that the game breaks and freezes if you try to use the front door of your house in the end, and if you use the portal to go anywhere you no longer have access to your guns. This means that until this is fixed you will have to restart if you are looking to 100% the game. The addition of a new game plus would have been nice.
Overall, I really enjoyed the breath of fresh air this game was and know that I will be replaying it a second time just to find all the easter eggs and probably watch the fully licensed movie that they added to the game as a joke. Its on Xbox Game Pass so its worth checking out.
Have you played High on Life? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below.