High on Life (2022)

I hung in long enough for Tim Robinson’s voiced character to show up and the humour is much improved by his performance. It’s an easy choice to hang out with him or Betsy Sodaro over the other performers because both bring their trademark charm (sorry J.B. Smoove, Gus just isn’t a useful enough gattlian to have out in most situations so you got the short end of the stick here).

Surprisingly the most annoying part about it was just the gameplay and not the dialogue. Some of the jokes were funny even if the majority weren't, but the ones that weren't were less grating than your average line of dialogue in Forspoken for me. The killer for me was that it's just really slow to get around and doesn't feel very good to shoot the guns at stuff. Might go back in and noodle around but after completing the first area and first boss I mostly just felt OK.

High on Life has a boss problem. The boss fights are deeply uninteresting. I’ll be the first to admit I’m a boss fight type of person, great boss fights make my day. High on Life suffers from the mistaken idea that long fights make for good fights. They might, if those fights are complex, interesting and encourage the player to think creatively and act swiftly. Unfortunately, boss fights in High on Life possess none of those qualities. They simply drag on too long extending less than a handful of simple mechanics into tedium. There’s no real challenge other than to your patience.

So far it's ok, definitely not mind blowing. It has the trademark Justin Roiland humour and performance. I'm largely a fan of Roiland for one thing, Lemon Grab in Adventure Time (sadly that was short lived because Roiland damaged his vocal cords putting in the initial few performances). I'm less of a fan of the rest of his work, and I don't really watch Rick & Morty so it may be that the comedy in the game doesn't land with me the way it will for other players. The game itself is fairly simple with an approach that we've all played a hundred times over. That's not to say gameplay is poor, it's just very familiar and doesn't do anything to stand out mechanically. It's clear the game is riding on its comedic approach, and so far I find that aspect functional but not personally engaging. Essentially I haven't yet hit a point in the game where I feel it matches the idea that it...Might Be The Best Surprise of the Year. But then again, maybe it...Is Best Played Stoned