sevenishmagpies
High on Life 2022
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
--
Days in Journal
2 days
Last played
December 23, 2022
First played
December 21, 2022
Platforms Played
Take Titanfall 2, remove the giant robots and absolutely brilliant level design, turn the movement and gunplay from 11 down to 6, and then replace the void you made with jokes about holes and alien sex and you have High on Life. It has surprisingly competent (and sometimes fun!) gameplay, but it's clear that the point of the game is the humor.
And the humor is... surprisingly good. Not all of it is well written and some of it is repetitive---there are only so many jokes about holes I can take in---but when it lands it's great. The writing shines when it pokes fun at gaming (and the game) itself or when it's just out of nowhere absurdist. It's got better writing than Borderlands for sure.
More surprisingly the humor is not racist, not homophobic, not fatphobic, not anti-Semitic, and not transphobic. The closest thing was when two male characters had traditionally female names, but nobody made fun of it or even commented on it. There's a very low bar and this game crossed it!
The gameplay is... okay. The gunplay and combat is frustratingly mediocre at the beginning and becomes satisfyingly mediocre once you get a couple more weapons. Since guns reload themselves when you switch them out and their specials have separate cooldowns having only one gun really sucks. Same thing can be said about the platforming. Once you have some options it can be fun, but this isn't Titanfall 2 for sure.
Where the game suffers is the end. Both the writing and the gameplay become pretty lacking towards the end, and it feels like there are additional things like more gun mods that were planned but never implemented.
This game isn't the most amazing thing ever but it's fun, unless you can't stand the writing. It's not a meal from a 5 star restaurant, but sometimes it's okay and you just want the Stoner Special from Jack in the Box where they put cheese sauce and onion rings on a burger.
One note: this is an utterly terrible game at $60 and I would give it 0.5 stars had I paid $60 for it, but as part of Game Pass (which I paid $1 for) it is a fun time.
EDIT: Took 2 stars off because I just found out the main guy who made the game who also does the main voice is a terrible person.
And the humor is... surprisingly good. Not all of it is well written and some of it is repetitive---there are only so many jokes about holes I can take in---but when it lands it's great. The writing shines when it pokes fun at gaming (and the game) itself or when it's just out of nowhere absurdist. It's got better writing than Borderlands for sure.
More surprisingly the humor is not racist, not homophobic, not fatphobic, not anti-Semitic, and not transphobic. The closest thing was when two male characters had traditionally female names, but nobody made fun of it or even commented on it. There's a very low bar and this game crossed it!
The gameplay is... okay. The gunplay and combat is frustratingly mediocre at the beginning and becomes satisfyingly mediocre once you get a couple more weapons. Since guns reload themselves when you switch them out and their specials have separate cooldowns having only one gun really sucks. Same thing can be said about the platforming. Once you have some options it can be fun, but this isn't Titanfall 2 for sure.
Where the game suffers is the end. Both the writing and the gameplay become pretty lacking towards the end, and it feels like there are additional things like more gun mods that were planned but never implemented.
This game isn't the most amazing thing ever but it's fun, unless you can't stand the writing. It's not a meal from a 5 star restaurant, but sometimes it's okay and you just want the Stoner Special from Jack in the Box where they put cheese sauce and onion rings on a burger.
One note: this is an utterly terrible game at $60 and I would give it 0.5 stars had I paid $60 for it, but as part of Game Pass (which I paid $1 for) it is a fun time.
EDIT: Took 2 stars off because I just found out the main guy who made the game who also does the main voice is a terrible person.