A disturbingly funny comedy FPS game | High on Life - Review

You are fresh out of high school; no job, no experience, no goals in life. Intergalactic aliens invade and want to get high off of humans. You stumble upon a sentient talking pistol. What do you do? Why not hunt them for bounties, with firepower assistance from an arsenal of talking guns. High on Life is a new crazy game from the creator of the animated TV series Rick and Morty, that is literally high on all fronts; talking self-aware guns, weirding looking aliens to slaughter in style, and unfiltered abusive dialogue.

High on Life’s satirical attempt at entertainment is not for everyone. It’s mature-rated. It’s very disturbing, there isn’t even an ounce of seriousness in this self-aware comedy FPS game, and sometimes you can forget that it’s a video game and just want to listen to the highly subjective hilarious dialogues and interactions.

One of the high points of the game is the talking guns, each of the four distinct guns with their own voice actor and personalities that react to different situations and decisions that you find yourself in. A humorous gun that makes witty remarks, or even a psychotic deranged knife that wants to kill everyone on sight, even friendlies. Every gun has something different to say in every situation, which adds a lot of flavor and variety to the game’s charm. Fortunately, there is an option to change how frequently the guns speak, if you find them talking excessively.

High on Life is unhinged, you can literally go postal in this game; Kill civilians, innocent bystanders, or even lowkey force you to kill an annoying alien kid. Dialogue choices and an unshackled approach to many situations lets you participate in the absurdness of this game. Just got a new knife from a weapons dealer? Kill the dealer. Encounter a bunch of construction workers on your way to the objective? kill them all for no reason. High on Life just doesn’t care. And just to be clear, most of these aren’t your objectives, this is just something that you are given freedom to do in the game, a privilege usually not given in other titles.

The free flowing FPS combat of High on Life is fun and dynamic. It reminded me of the underrated game Bulletstorm. Your weapons, and abilities are varied and interesting in their own ways that you are fascinated — to the point of being encouraged — to use them all and mix them into different combos and cool maneuvers. You have jetpacks, grappling hooks, discs that you can shoot and bounce around enemies and deflect them back like Captain America, a grenade that launches enemies into the air, and many more. It starts off a little slow in the first few hours, but once weapon and enemy variety gets diverse enough, the fun kicks in.

Across your sub twenty-hour bounty hunting journey in High on Life, you will visit many varying locations across the cosmos; futuristic cities, slums, lush jungles, and even desert wastelands. Metroidvanian platformer mechanics are sprinkled all over the level designs.  Because of the platforming elements as well as your movement abilities, the Boss fights are also Metroidvanian, they shoot and throw projectiles at you that actually requires skill and dodging. This is a welcome mechanic instead of the usual bullet sponge bosses or boring QTEs that most mainstream FPS games have.

Between High on Life’s highly kinetic FPS carnage and unhinged dialogue lies a highly divisive game you will either hate or love so much depending on your humor tastes. If you do like the absurdist humor style of Rick and Morty, this is a game that won’t disappoint.