Squanch Games returns with its biggest release yet, the profanity-laden FPS sci-fi adventure High on Life. It presents a spread of crass humor, self-referential video game tropes, and buckets of alien blood to spill, yet feels far flabbier than the studio’s ing and VR-optional Trover Saves the Universe. High on Life’s length eclipses these two games put together, but it’s also an emptier and flatter experience than its colorful screenshots may imply.
An alien invasion throws High on Life’s unnamed teenage protagonist into a bounty hunter spacesuit, now poised to assassinate high-ranking of an alien criminal cartel called G3 who seek to somehow turn human beings into drugs (the game’s title is to be taken literally). The player is ed by their sister Lizzy, an over-the-hill alien bounty hunter mentor named Gene, and a small arsenal of Gatliens, talking guns which stand in as speaking participants to round out the silent-protagonist shtick.
Gunplay and navigation in the game feel very limited at first, but expand after obtaining new Gatliens and movement abilities. Eventually, four distinct areas become more easily traversable with these tools, though the actual combat feels serviceable at best, while imprecise at worst. The limited variety of enemy types doesn’t help, nor do the constant sequences where they seemingly spawn ad nauseam. Rather than come off as dynamic, exciting skirmishes, these encounters never amount to more than rote progress gates, preventing High on Life from ever confidently hitting its stride as an FPS.
Still, with each Gatlien being a fully voiced and fleshed-out character, it’s good fun to earn a new teammate and learn what they’re about, play around with their projectiles, and experiment with alt-fires in combat and occasional platforming puzzles. Aside from Creature, who essentially spawns tiny carnivorous Mr.-Meeseeks-like homunculi who leap onto enemies, the other guns feel surprisingly tame and basic, especially considering High on Life’s madcap presentation.
When Screen Rant reviewed Trover in 2019, the overproof concentration of humor evident in almost every nook and cranny of the game’s world was a highlight. High on Life has a problem - this game is lengthier and larger, but just can’t pack in as much content per square mile or fill in every corner with a joke or clever hook. Instead, it presents sizeable hub areas with spare bits of content to track down. Some of these are still a good time and occasionally funny, and the game has a small handful of twists which do hit their intended marks, but the majority of these levels are simply empty.
Stalk High on Life's streets and eventually there’s a strange NPC to find and engage, but most of them aren’t all that interesting, and much less successful than the constant stream of sketches on the many televisions to be found throughout starting area Blim City. Before long, those same TVs will have cycled through their content, and the tenth time hearing the funniest of these improvised bits (highly reminiscent of Rick & Morty's infamous Intergalactic Cable episodes) will wear down even the most ardent Roiland fan.
The same could be said of those guns, who repeat a small arrangement of voicelines throughout. Forget to use an alt-fire ability and they’ll cycle the same reminders, dozens upon dozens of times, or fire off a quick bark celebrating the joy of power-sliding on the floor as players rush to their next distant objective. Gatlien chatter can be tuned down in High on Life’s settings, but the game would be far more interesting and immersive if there was more differentiated audio throughout.
A cadre of amazing voice actors are along for this ride, including Roiland himself, with some surprise guests. Even armed with this rock-solid stable of talent, High on Life’s voice lines get ground into the dirt like virtually any other part of the game, even on top of an idiosyncratic soundtrack by TOBACCO that often sounds like queasy alien shopping mall muzak.
High on Life is a mediocre shooter punctuated by sporadic humor that misses more often than it hits. Its self-mocking video game gags were tackled much more effectively in Trover, and the sheer size of the experience only places its faults into greater relief. There are laughs to be had, secret collectibles to sniff out, and some genuinely hilarious riffs on internet forums, but these are not enough to uplift the basic gameplay. High on Life gets the job done, but not in a remarkable way.
High on Life is out now on PC and Xbox Series X/S. A digital PC code was provided to Screen Rant for the purpose of this review.
Source: Squanch Games/YouTube
