High on Life Hands-On Preview: It Might Be Exactly What the FPS Genre Needs
Justin Roiland’s Squanch Games’ upcoming comedy first-person shooter, High on Life, does not take place in the universe of Rick and Morty. But it certainly seems to be possible. It has silly aliens, fantastic settings, and a 100% Roiland sense of humor. From multi-dimensional cable-style animation shorts that serve as TV commercials for the High on Live universe, to the default talking gun, a pistol named Pistol. Kenny who looks like Morty.
I played it for hours. The devs were careful not to mess up the initial minutes, but otherwise gave you the freedom to choose any bounty you like, in any order, during your hands-on time. In short, High on Life is more than I expected, in the best sense of the word. I expected an interesting FPS with some gorgeous game worlds. That’s for sure, but when it comes to gameplay, there’s upgradeable weapons and skills, side quests, and literally hours of comedy layered on top of each other in the form of commercials, movies, and NPC dialogue to hang out and enjoy. should I choose that? Add that up and it’s a refreshing change of pace for a genre that’s usually taken too seriously.
Let’s start with what is arguably your High on Life calling card: your sense of humor. From Rick and Morty to Solar Opposites to his shocking short film made for Seth Rogan’s Hilarity for Charity event in 2018, I’ve always been obsessed with Roiland’s comedies.
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Combat is more layered than it first appeared. Sure, there are four unique guns, but abilities you can buy from the in-game shop, like dashing, sliding forward, and health and weapon upgrades, make you feel more powerful in a shootout. game you get. Use Sweezy’s time-slow secondary attack to create pockets of enemies that are slow as molasses, and illuminate them with her primary Her Fire, which implants explosive crystals into the target. Then powerslide and melee the stuck bad guys to detonate the crystals. Kick out all nearby enemies. Or maybe you want to hit the bad guys in the time bubble by throwing Kenny’s alternate-firing blob grenade into the bubble to blow the target away, then move in with a gas shotgun-like primary attack to finish them off. Of course, as long as they don’t die yet, in which case you can use melee finishers.
It is also organically renewable. Roiland emphasized this during his lengthy hands-on gameplay session. It’s not meant to be played over and over again to find better items. No, this is a single-player, story-based game, but a natural side effect of having four main weapons (each with distinct personalities and deep wells of bespoke dialogue) is to play the section again and Being able to enjoy all the NPC conversations. Again, because it’s done in completely different ways depending on which gun the mute protagonist is wielding at the time.
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Next, I would like to talk about the art style. Simply put, High on Life’s Unreal Engine-powered alien world is vibrant and fun to watch. It’s a far cry from the grays and browns you see in many first-person shooters. The Zephyr Paradise biome in particular (where a village of adorable bear-like aliens called Moplets resides) was filled with a gorgeous array of pinks, blues and greens. And perhaps that’s the subtle way High on Life amplifies its humor: by contrasting beautiful landscapes with its unashamedly crude language. Although reminiscent of minutes, this is an influence Roiland quickly acknowledged.
Before we go, let’s get back to comedy. Yes, humor is subjective, but High on Life is funny to my ears. It’s also unforgiving. You can (and should) wait for NPCs to say something more interesting. Because they absolutely do. Roiland told me that he and his Squanch team wrote a ton of material for this game. Comedy hits you from every direction, from guns to enemies. Heck, you can find an entire feature-length B-movie hidden here, licensed and riffed, Mystery Science Theater 3000-style. The big question is whether High on Life has the gameplay to back up its lofty pile of jokes, and so far it looks very promising.
