Whatever your sense of humor I’d wager a giant pickle that you can’t make it through an hour of playing High On Life without at least a childish snigger. The Squanch Games shooter is back on Xbox Game Pass today, so there’s really no excuse not to test out that theory.
Conceived in the brain of Rick & Morty creator Justin Roiland, it’s a time honored tale of an alien invasion, bounty hunting missions, sentient weaponry, and a wannabe drummer called Globo who has a butt for a face. Roiland lends his vocal chords to your main gun, Kenny, who chats to you as you explore different planets and take on different enemies. It’s essentially “what if Morty spat bullets and had something to say about every little move I made?”
We gave High On Life game an 8 in our review, and called it “an irreverent, absurd shooter that manages to shine with its outrageous humor, silly setting and story, and some really goofy, foul-mouthed guns that pull the whole thing together for the vast majority of the time. ” When it was first on Xbox Game Pass originally in 2022, it became the biggest Xbox Game Pass release of that year.
There are what Kenny describes as “classic, text book, puzzle situations,” or “simple platforming… like in Mario Land” parts, but the true joy comes from the inane dialogue and jokes that are hitting you from everywhere. The storyline takes weird tangents, henchmen hanging around in the background and chat, and your selection of talking weapons never shut up. One of them – my favorite, whose ammunition is the bodies of his newborn children – is even voiced by comedian Tim Robinson from I Think You Should Leave and A24’s Friendship.
He’ll say typical line from Knifey might be “I’m in heaven right now, I’m ripping through his tendons like they’re butter,” or a dying Carebear type creature with its intestines hanging out will beg you to stay until it dies, then fake you out until Kenny begs you to shoot him. NPCs chat about killing their wives and kids so they won’t miss them, or who on the team might be into sexual torture. There’s a section in an Applebees, a gun called Lezduit who talks like Sylvester Stallone, a kid who taunts you to kill him – “I look so shootable” while Kenny begs you not to.
Anyway, just try it. High on Life 2 was just announced this summer and is supposed to be out by this winter, so you’ll want to catch up with the story before then.
Rachel Weber is the Senior Editorial Director of Games at IGN and an elder millennial. She’s been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, and French Bulldogs. Those extra wrinkles on her face are thanks to going time blind and staying up too late finishing every sidequest in RPGs like Fallout and Witcher 3.
