High on Life - Wake Up! Roiland released underbeer shooter! +18

High on Life is the clearest example of how the name and brand predetermine success. It's all about the most expensive currency in the world. No, not dollars, euros, and certainly not bitcoin, the most expensive currency in the world is trust.

Justin Roiland was lucky enough to get his hands on that currency by creating a pretty good TV series called Rick and Morty. Success was not immediate, and the pilot episode is not without tears, but no matter how you feel about this kind of humor, "Rick and Morty" was enough and apt, caustic mockery. Among the closest competitors were the cartoon series Family Guy, South Park and Futurama: the first liked to punch flat jokes in the forehead, the second relied exclusively on mockery of mass culture, and the third sometimes joked too hard for the mass consumer, because Futurama worked on a master of computer science.

It's December 13, 2022, High on Life was released, broke the Game Pass subscription download record on the Xbox console, and was warmly welcomed by gamers on Steam. And setting aside all the moralistic complaints about what you can and can't joke about, I wouldn't recommend High on Life. And here's why...

Humorous shooter or shooter humor?

Many creatures became extinct because they were too weak to live in the new realities. High on Life is a representative of an endangered genre, it is a humorous shooter, although the definition of shooter humor is more sticky to this game. Unlike the same Doom Eternal, in High on Life the shooting is not the basis, but the background rationale of what happens. The plot tells the stoned story of a nerd living with his sister. "Nerd" literally, because before the game begins, the protagonist's sister suffers from rhinitis and is treated by every available method:

After which the earth is immediately attacked by alien invaders. This time there are no evil plans for enslavement, the aliens just want to make drugs out of people. The aliens land not far from the protagonist's house and, by all the laws of the genre, leave him alive for some reason, but also lose their alien weapon:

The weapon turns out to be animated, introduces the protagonist to the case and chats relentlessly. Of course, the protagonist of yesterday's nerd immediately pretends to be Rambo and goes to absolutely unknown worlds. Is there air there? What is the atmospheric pressure? Yes, and there is a rumor that in space can be a little cold and deadly radioactive for humans, is this true? - None of this matters, because the game is from the creator of "Rick and Morty". Aliens, genital secretions, urine and shit are all present. No need to criticize anyone's sense of humor, some people generally consider a child's suicide the pinnacle of comedy, and that's okay... It's okay, right?

In principle, for a comedy shooter High on Life exposition is objectively strong, the same Shadow Warrior 3 also cannot boast of such. But comedy shooters for a reason gave up their positions, because the average age of players over the past decade has almost doubled, and sexually mature person is harder to make fun...sort of. Peeing on passersby in Postal 2 was funny, but times were different. What does Postal 2 have to do with it? It has to do with the fact that Postal's humor was homogeneous: shit, black and down-to-earth. High on Life, on the other hand, throughout its entire running time the game just can't seem to decide what direction it should take: from satire to toilet humor to outright black humor. By the logic of the creator it should expand the list of those who like the game, but in fact the average person from all comedy layer like only 5-10% of jokes.

But if you have some prejudices about jokes, if you prefer Bernard Shaw's humor and Irvine Welsh's works seem harsh to you - High on Life is obviously not for you. For lovers of subtle humor, some kind of Disco Elysium is better, but in High on Life there is nothing for such people...

Or the budget Doom?

But the shooter mechanics of High on Life is largely based on the experience of Doom: the same arena shootouts against clusters of enemies, a somewhat similar feeling of firing and...the cat-hook, where would it go without it?

The gameplay here is not too vertical, and the cat-hook is not limited to it. Fancy mechanics with roll-ups, with running on walls and jetpack add a few points to the spectacle and take your eyes off the pressing problems of the game, namely the small variety of enemies, their stupidity and the lack of at least one unique mechanic. What the game does have is 5 completely unlikeable weapons that will talk to both the player and each other, one of which may start whining that he's bored sitting in a holster...

...and each gun is different not only in damage, but also in application. However, after a minute "Wow" comes an hour-long "F*ck", because there is simply no one to use these weapons on. Ordinary opponents are boring, and battles with bosses...see for yourself:

High on Life's bossfight level is the usual Korean first-person djabloid. There's even a boss who tragically kills himself right during the intro, a direct plagiarism of the Borderlands joke.

...The situation is better with platforming and the occasional puzzle insertion. An entire planet is dedicated to platforming, where the player will definitely appreciate the responsive controls and non-adjustable viewing angle. The puzzles don't drag on, they also feature jokes and don't throw off the game's pace, as Ghostrunner's levels did.

Is it worth it?

An important role in the success of High on Life has also played the fact that the game is available on GamePass subscription on Xbox, for a free game - above all praise: 7-8 hours of gameplay is slightly below average, but a couple of jokes you will remember for sure. On other platforms I would hesitate to recommend to buy High on Life, because in fact the whole game - is fanservice, hundreds of relevant and not very references and mediocre game-design shooter 2015, you can pass this on YouTube and do not lose anything.