This review contains spoilers
I've never watched Rick and Mortimer, but I do know some of the voice actors in this. So how bad could it be?
It feels like everyone reviewing this game is just going to give a 1/5 without actually playing the damn thing, so I decided try to beat this in one go to see what was up.
I'm first going to talk about the gameplay before I touch on story, which isn't the biggest thing I disliked overall. There is a setting as to how frequent you want your weapons to talk to you if you do end up getting annoyed by them while playing the game, and I sent it on occasion just to see what they would say instead of outright muting them.
This game feels like it wants to be something akin to ratchet and clank with the amount of weapons given, but even the trick actions (The secondary firing action of each weapon) feel very underwhelming, even on the hardest difficulty. The only times I got to see myself switch between weapons were during the bossfights, and that's because I was running around a room staying behind a pillar till I could regen my health again to shoot another "trick" shot. At least when using the knife your shield regens if you are killing any of the mobs you're fighting, minus the armored ants for whatever reason.
For my playthrough I mostly used the frog shotgun as he talked and felt more like a weapon that didn't annoy my ears every time I did an action.
On that note of the weapons, their versatility is pretty fine for the most part. You have the main morty pistol that shoots long/short range just fine with a gloop shot that forces people in the air, the shotgun frog that deals huge damage up close and has discs that you can shoot and reflect with knifey to repeatedly do damage at whatever you're fighting at, the "Needler" weapon has a longshot for a scope in and a free firing rapid fire mode from the hip with a time bubble that she can shoot at to slow enemies down, and lastly the minion launcher that is pretty much going to be your damage dealer for the rest of the bosses unless you want a bigger headache dealing DPS while you're running away in an arena. His main shtick is shooting minions and those said minions can deal damage over time to whatever they're stuck on, and his trick shot is shooting a purple minion that mind controls whatever enemy is stuck to it but dies after a while. There is one more weapon, but I'll get to it when I talk about the story, as you don't get him until the very end of the game.
So going back on gameplay, the gunplay feels like a mix of Halo and ratchet and clank and if you like executing a lot with the knife, a bit of doom eternal with the way you can execute enemies to regain back your shield. And you do this for the rest of the game with no changes to the loop. Shooting enemies felt pretty fun, and seeing their shields get knocked out was just as fun to see as well. Sadly the fun starts to stop when the bosses come up, as they can be a pain in the ass if you're not ready to keep dashing/roping around with the grapple in the air. As said before, I played on the hardest difficulty and I died a lot more than I thought on these bosses so if you're a huge gamer, I don't think you'll have too much of a hard time. For me, I just kept getting my ass kicked until I got through it finally.
Alright, gameplay and mechanics out. Time for the actual story discussion. It's Fine. The story is just the main character and his sister finding out there are aliens on earth all of a sudden, and our main character finds the morty pistol and decides to warp out of there using a teleporter that you snagged from an alien ship. Now you and the rest of the pistols that you find on your way are the only things capable in stopping the G3 head honcho, garmantuous or else the world is doomed. Sure you find gus and your sister arguing on occasion but this has absolutely no bearing on the story at all. None of the relationship discussions that you have with either one of them matter at all, and are only there to make you laugh. Or at least try to.
Sadly, the rest of the game's jokes are like this too, where they just overstay their welcome and at times, you can't even leave without hearing what whatever person has to say. The only time I got around to laughing was at some point in the game, Zach hadel's voice for a bear or whatever is cut in half and is dying on the floor, and he wants you to stay with him in his last moments alive, and any time you attempt to leave, he says "Cmon, you would leave me like that?" and it was just so hilarious hearing him get more and more annoyed as he's dying to see you walk away. I melee'd his character on accident so I didn't get to see the end of the bit sadly.
This game has sort of the deal that YIIK had going on when it was developed and people played it over time. "There is a game under all of this crap that they've made, and even if some of those features aren't all perfect, there is something fun here." I think High on Life has the same idea going for itself too, where it's just hampered by all of the writing and the overblown jokes. It's like playing through Borderlands 2 with the dialogue turned up while in a gunfight for the whole game. I enjoyed myself playing some parts of this game, and the gunplay was pretty fun too. But the story wasn't very new, and even when they give you the Ratchet and Clank equivalent of the RYNO, it was just rushing through just for the player to get to the final boss. I busted out laughing just wondering who thought putting a Nier Automata type of boss as the last boss was ok? Even the other bosses had something unique to them, and even with the second phase, garmantuous was just a pushover, you get a little heart to heart with morty as he's going to try and sacrifice himself, and then the big bad explodes but mortimer is still alive, then the game ends.
I sometimes felt whether I wasted my time with this game, but even after playing through it, I don't know what to think about it. The mix of crap and actually good gameplay ideas coming from this was just jarring to my brain.
I think this game is good for a one time playthrough, but I don't think I'll see myself digging it up from my library again. Good thing it's on game pass though at the time of writing this.
It feels like everyone reviewing this game is just going to give a 1/5 without actually playing the damn thing, so I decided try to beat this in one go to see what was up.
I'm first going to talk about the gameplay before I touch on story, which isn't the biggest thing I disliked overall. There is a setting as to how frequent you want your weapons to talk to you if you do end up getting annoyed by them while playing the game, and I sent it on occasion just to see what they would say instead of outright muting them.
This game feels like it wants to be something akin to ratchet and clank with the amount of weapons given, but even the trick actions (The secondary firing action of each weapon) feel very underwhelming, even on the hardest difficulty. The only times I got to see myself switch between weapons were during the bossfights, and that's because I was running around a room staying behind a pillar till I could regen my health again to shoot another "trick" shot. At least when using the knife your shield regens if you are killing any of the mobs you're fighting, minus the armored ants for whatever reason.
For my playthrough I mostly used the frog shotgun as he talked and felt more like a weapon that didn't annoy my ears every time I did an action.
On that note of the weapons, their versatility is pretty fine for the most part. You have the main morty pistol that shoots long/short range just fine with a gloop shot that forces people in the air, the shotgun frog that deals huge damage up close and has discs that you can shoot and reflect with knifey to repeatedly do damage at whatever you're fighting at, the "Needler" weapon has a longshot for a scope in and a free firing rapid fire mode from the hip with a time bubble that she can shoot at to slow enemies down, and lastly the minion launcher that is pretty much going to be your damage dealer for the rest of the bosses unless you want a bigger headache dealing DPS while you're running away in an arena. His main shtick is shooting minions and those said minions can deal damage over time to whatever they're stuck on, and his trick shot is shooting a purple minion that mind controls whatever enemy is stuck to it but dies after a while. There is one more weapon, but I'll get to it when I talk about the story, as you don't get him until the very end of the game.
So going back on gameplay, the gunplay feels like a mix of Halo and ratchet and clank and if you like executing a lot with the knife, a bit of doom eternal with the way you can execute enemies to regain back your shield. And you do this for the rest of the game with no changes to the loop. Shooting enemies felt pretty fun, and seeing their shields get knocked out was just as fun to see as well. Sadly the fun starts to stop when the bosses come up, as they can be a pain in the ass if you're not ready to keep dashing/roping around with the grapple in the air. As said before, I played on the hardest difficulty and I died a lot more than I thought on these bosses so if you're a huge gamer, I don't think you'll have too much of a hard time. For me, I just kept getting my ass kicked until I got through it finally.
Alright, gameplay and mechanics out. Time for the actual story discussion. It's Fine. The story is just the main character and his sister finding out there are aliens on earth all of a sudden, and our main character finds the morty pistol and decides to warp out of there using a teleporter that you snagged from an alien ship. Now you and the rest of the pistols that you find on your way are the only things capable in stopping the G3 head honcho, garmantuous or else the world is doomed. Sure you find gus and your sister arguing on occasion but this has absolutely no bearing on the story at all. None of the relationship discussions that you have with either one of them matter at all, and are only there to make you laugh. Or at least try to.
Sadly, the rest of the game's jokes are like this too, where they just overstay their welcome and at times, you can't even leave without hearing what whatever person has to say. The only time I got around to laughing was at some point in the game, Zach hadel's voice for a bear or whatever is cut in half and is dying on the floor, and he wants you to stay with him in his last moments alive, and any time you attempt to leave, he says "Cmon, you would leave me like that?" and it was just so hilarious hearing him get more and more annoyed as he's dying to see you walk away. I melee'd his character on accident so I didn't get to see the end of the bit sadly.
This game has sort of the deal that YIIK had going on when it was developed and people played it over time. "There is a game under all of this crap that they've made, and even if some of those features aren't all perfect, there is something fun here." I think High on Life has the same idea going for itself too, where it's just hampered by all of the writing and the overblown jokes. It's like playing through Borderlands 2 with the dialogue turned up while in a gunfight for the whole game. I enjoyed myself playing some parts of this game, and the gunplay was pretty fun too. But the story wasn't very new, and even when they give you the Ratchet and Clank equivalent of the RYNO, it was just rushing through just for the player to get to the final boss. I busted out laughing just wondering who thought putting a Nier Automata type of boss as the last boss was ok? Even the other bosses had something unique to them, and even with the second phase, garmantuous was just a pushover, you get a little heart to heart with morty as he's going to try and sacrifice himself, and then the big bad explodes but mortimer is still alive, then the game ends.
I sometimes felt whether I wasted my time with this game, but even after playing through it, I don't know what to think about it. The mix of crap and actually good gameplay ideas coming from this was just jarring to my brain.
I think this game is good for a one time playthrough, but I don't think I'll see myself digging it up from my library again. Good thing it's on game pass though at the time of writing this.