High on Life was probably the game I was most anxious to play today at PAX West. It’s from Squanch Games, notable for being helmed by Justin Roiland of Rick & Morty fame and early footage made it seem like it might have been doubling down on some of the cringier aspects of Rick & Morty’s brand of humor. Thankfully though, in context of sitting through a full demo I can safely say that High on Life catapulted to the top of my list of games I’m eager to get my hands on. Described as a sort of metroidvania, High on Life sets the stage as a do-nothing loser whose life is flipped when they’re teleported to an alien planet where they become a bounty hunter to stop an alien cartel who kidnapped humanity to throw into a “Hyperbong” to be used to get aliens high. The game oozes Roiland’s brand of humor, but it also feels wholly its own with its own personality separate from his previous works.
The demo saw me being introduced to my talking gun and the setup of becoming a bounty hunter before being quickly sent off on my first mission. After leaving my normal home, I was immediately introduced to this massive alien city which had a variety of characters to chat with or TV ads to watch. Something that immediately caught my attention was the fact that the game features a handful of full length licensed movies that each have commentary by the Red Letter Media crew, created exclusively for High On Life. I never thought I’d buy a game just to watch a movie, but here we are I guess. I then made my way into the lower part of the city where I fought off hordes of flimsy bug aliens, all falling apart in comically gory ways while my gun went off on various topics. I eventually acquired a second, just as chatty, weapon and made my way to the boss which didn’t play as well as the previous encounters, but that might be because the sensitivity was turned considerably down on the controller. She just moved faster than I could comfortably move the camera, so I’m sure turning that setting up would fix my issue.
My short time with the game had me cracking up from start to finish, and the bantering back and forth between the gun and NPCs or enemies never wore on me. The game is also stacked with a killer cast of comedians voicing some of the characters such as JB Smoove and Tim Robinson, which I’m surprised isn’t being advertised more. It’s rare to get a game you could classify as a “comedy” game, that makes you laugh consistently throughout, and High on Life might just be a treat of that.
We recently got to interview Justin Roiland himself while at the show, which you can view over here.
