Review — High On Life [PS5]

High On Life

We sit down and review High On Life. A comedic FPS title we all never knew we needed. Here is our review of High On Life

Just when you thought the PlayStation crowd might be missing out on High On Life outside of watching videos of it, Squanch Games turns around and drops it on the PS4 and PS5. Maybe this was due to some kind of deal or maybe it was due to the team needing a bit longer to make the game port on over easier. It could also be to better hype up the pending DLC that is also on the way. No matter the case, we had a chance to see how well High On Life is and how it made the leap over to the new platforms. Kick back and get ready to dive in with our review of the game on the new platforms. Not to mention give us all some fun humor to have in the mix of it all too.

Story

We take on the role of an unnamed human in the mix of things in High On Life. Just mind our own business, Earth gets invaded by a bunch of aliens out there that are looking to get their next big high out there. That just happens to be smoking or huffing the life out of humans. Well, being a human, we cannot sit back and let this happen. All with the help of another species, the Gatlians, we head out to bring down the next massive drug cartel looking for dominance in the universe. We might also be helping out another washed-up bounty hunter in the mix too.

High On Life — Review

Hated

As with many games like High On Life, it always feels like we are given so many weapons that we never need to use outside of very specific instances. This boils down to the various guns we have to use in the game. A nice smattering and with the usual functionality, but given that they never ran out of ammo, there was very little reason to swap between them outside of the special attacks they had. Most of the time in High On Life, that was mostly just for platforming and then various specific uses. They felt different but outside of the starting and ending guns, I rarely used the others to get anything done. These need to be highlighted just a bit more in my opinion.

Speaking to the platforming aspect of High On Life, while not the focused feature of the game, it is something in the mix that needs to be discussed. Especially since it is rough at the start and then all but forgotten later on down the line. Early on in the game, there is a need to use Knifey (our sentient knife, melee weapon, and grapple item), then there gets to be a point where it is no longer needed. Due to us getting a jet pack. This makes it all feel as if it was a secondary thought in High On Life and just placed in there to pad some of the time. This kind of thing happens, sure, but it did not feel like it added anything to the overall game outside of giving slower points and using them to search for collectibles. All are to be ignored once the jet pack is fully upgraded.

Lastly, while High On Life does play around with some of the usual tropes of an FPS and, in some instances, usurps them in a perfect way, the climax fight of the game is rather lackluster. Something that one would think would have been called out more by the jokes of the game, but never is. It came down to a lot of hovering and shooting the final gun picked up in the game. One that dealt loads of damage and felt like an auto-hit weapon. If some of the other boss fights were not so well thought out, this could have been left out of the “Hated” side of things, but some of the others, including one where the boss dies before the fight, were so much fun in High On Life that the climax fell a little short.

High On Life — Review

Loved

This is going to be a mixed bag for many, but if you enjoy the humor of shows like Rick & Morty or Solar Opposites, then you are going to fall in love with High On Life. I am a huge fan of the humor out there and the writing style of the teams, so I knew I was going to love this one. Even down to the random things that the guns or side characters say in the game, I found myself wanting so much more. Even when there is an option in High On Life to turn all of that down or off, I could not see why anyone would want to. It was like getting hours more of the content I loved before the game dropped out there. That alone had me sold and made me fall in love with it all.

If the comedy of High On Life did not get me sucked into it all before, then the next thing that would have would be those boss fights. As I mentioned before, they felt very well planned out. Even if some came down to using some of the basic platforming and shooting in the mix, each was a highlight in the game. Even the one that ended up being just massive waves of enemies or a drug-induced trip. I can see why High On Life had the option to replay some of them in the mix. Outside of the final battle, they all had the perfect blend of everything the game had to offer up and were so very engaging. Unlike many other games where the damage is just turned up and they have a longer health bar. This one, weirdly, made you have to think in many different ways.

Lastly, even if they were on the basic side many times in High On Life, the minigames and puzzles were so well done. They were never anything difficult but were placed so well that it helped pace the game perfectly when it came to the story. Who would have thought a minigame about filling out paperwork would have been so much fun in a game about shooting aliens? Even the “pipedream” minigame/puzzle was a lot of fun to figure out while placing it all in a 3D space. None of them were easy press-a-button-to-win, mostly, but it oddly helped elevate High On Life just a bit more than I was further engaged to complete everything. Someone took the time to plan all of this out and they deserve all of the kudos in the mix.

High On Life — Review

Overview

Hands down, if you enjoy the writing of the shows mentioned above, then High On Life is going to be a game for you. Even if you are not into the FPS genre of games. That by itself will get you wanting to play the game even in “Story Mode.” It does feel like there are some guns added into the mix just to make sure there were options in there, but one could do most of the game with the starting and ending guns, so that was a little bit of a letdown. I ignored a good chunk of the collectible options in High On Life too, so do not get excited for that. Other than that, though, it was a solid game and I will recommend it to anyone that wants to have an awesome comedy with some fun shooting mixed right in.

I give High On Life 5 Gatlians on the Gatlian scale.

High On Life was developed and published by Squanch Games for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC and landing on the PlayStation on July 22^nd, 2023. A PlayStation copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.