High on Life is actually fun, most fun when it leans into game humor – hands on

This Game Show 2022 The presentation of High On Life, the new Xbox-exclusive shooter from Squanch Games, received quite mixed reactions online. Some people find things on public display amusing, but for others it’s a real chalkboard situation. However, having played the game on the show, I can say one key thing: its sense of humor is much better in context and in the game.

In a way, humor is the focus of this game. Squanch Games is a game studio founded by Justin Roiland, co-creator of Rick and Morty and the voice behind the show’s aptly named characters. Roiland is trying to do what he does best, but in games — face-to-face adult humor, but delivered by colorful characters that, at first glance, seem kid-friendly. they are not.

Reactions to High on Life over the past week or so are intrinsically linked to these elements of the game. In fact, I’ve seen almost no one talk about its gaming performance, colorful visuals, or interesting set of weapon types and abilities. People are more interested in the fact that weapons speak, and most interested in what they are saying.

And, to be honest, even after playing longer, I could see the source of the complaints. It was rude, loud, and dirty. It’s easy to check out footage from High on Life, like the boss fight shown live on Gamescom’s opening night, because it’s reductive and goofy. It’s like, “Uh uh, the game has a curse. Funny!” I’m not taking issue with general judgments here – but I’m here to say that when you’re in the flow of the game, these things take less weight dominance. Also, there’s a lot of humor here that isn’t that.

In fact, at its best, I think High on Life has done something unique to the medium: it satirized the conventions and traditions of video game design and the wider gaming community. Comedy is uncommon in games, and especially outside of narrative-driven games like adventure games; so having a shooter that’s sometimes funny is a welcome thing. For a while, it was Borderlands — but honestly, over time I started to fall out of love with the series and its brash, meme-like humor.

The curse in High on Life never made me laugh, but some situations and individual lines did. For example, there is an NPC fishing at the dock, and you need to chat with him to progress. This guy loops some small talk before you actually talk to him, and if you stop and listen, you’ll hear him musing about his life as a video game NPC, doomed to wait and hang out, performing a mundane task until Finally the player comes to talk to him. It’s the same with some enemies, boasting that they’re “the most stubborn enemies in the game” when you first engage them – but then panicking to realize they’ve been duped when you knock them into the air. They’re actually gooey tutorial baddies just spawned to die.

My favorite line of the 30-minute demo came after first picking up the knife, another sentient weapon shown in part of the opening night live footage. You see, each weapon has its own personality, the characteristic of the knife is that it only likes to stab and kill. It hints at a bunch of ecstasy and grateful cries when you stab your knife into an enemy in a melee attack. A lot of it’s just a wild joy and begging you to kill more – but Knife knows its video games too, at one point suggesting I do “any % knife run” explicitly mentioning the video game fast run community and many players A highly specific record category to run.

This joke did something that I don’t remember any video game jokes doing at the event – it made me laugh out loud. You get tired from these activities, your feet hurt, you might have a little hangover, and while you enjoy watching games and meeting developers, part of you is always the low-key stress. But the joke totally caught me off guard, perfectly pitched and delivered, and I laughed. Several other gimmicks made me laugh throughout the build, which I honestly think is quite an achievement.

The constant curses and more rude elements largely left me ignoring. I think I’m done with the fun stuff – although I do laugh when the game builds up a little bit of (alien) child murder and then straight up admits it. “Killing a kid isn’t usually allowed in games, but he died and we killed the kid,” your nervous sidearm spatters. “Are you happy now? Our E rating for everyone!”

So, it’s weird. Half of the humor in my life is kinda over for me. A cute looking game swearing is no longer funny to me. I am not 12 years old. However, as someone who will go to Conker’s Bad Fur Day as one of the greatest games of his generation, and as someone who has South Park: The Stick of Truth as one of his favorite games of 2014 , I also understand the power of being rude, loud and imitating the best games. High on Life feels like a game that would fall into a similar category to these games—for better or worse.

As far as video games go? It’s ok! It’s a nice little shooter with featured weapons (and I’m not talking about their chatter out there), a fun alt-fire mode, and (in this demo) a challenging stage-based arena boss fight, A range of skills are required to be carefully understood at your disposal.

However, it doesn’t really matter. The game part doesn’t need to be extraordinary – it just needs to be quality, fun and satisfying. It is these things that are good enough.

What draws people to High on Life is its colorful, quirky nature—yes, that humor. But just know that if you’ve been turned off by the constant F-bombs in the trailer, know there’s more. There are fun gaming gimmicks, a surprisingly rich atmosphere, and frankly, it’s different in the shooter space. I’m here for it – even if it’s a little ruthless at times.

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High On Life is coming to PC on December 13th through the Epic Games Store and Steam, as well as on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.