5mg of Delta-5.5

Oh geez Excessive on Life. You recognize, like, on one hand I’m eager on the entire “Justin Roiland voice” shtick, particularly in the case of Photo voltaic Opposites. However oh man….on the opposite….it’s getting a bit previous, you already know? Particularly if most individuals in these worlds really feel like they’re simply riffing, like all the things is a stream of consciousness…like we’re all simply…a part of one large galactic celebration that by no means ends? Like how Shrek was principally only a collection of riffs from the actors, and a variety of it didn’t work? Look it up! On…Wikipedia…or Bing…or one thing.

Anyway, yeah, a variety of the Roiland shtick does nonetheless make me snicker, however there isn’t a powerful sufficient sport round it to essentially maintain up Excessive on Life.

Excessive on Life (PC, Xbox One, Xbox Collection X/S [reviewed on a Series X])
Developer: Squanch Video games
Writer: Squanch Video games
Launched: December 13, 2022
MSRP: $59.99 (additionally on Xbox Sport Go)

Excessive on Life is an irreverent exploration-heavy shooter that’s very a lot inline with a variety of Justin Roiland’s prior work. For those who’ve by no means performed considered one of Squanch Video games’ releases earlier than, or by no means seen Ricky and Morty or any variety of his tasks: it’s a variety of shock (sudden loss of life)/gross-out humor, together with some actually insane premises, usually in sci-fi setting. Think about a Rick and Morty episode the place Morty takes over the position of a bounty hunter and has a solo episode, and also you’re just about there.

On this specific sport although, you play the position of a random human on Earth, within the midst of an alien invasion. One factor results in one other and your home is transported to a different planet, and also you’re making a take care of an ex-bounty hunter for his or her swimsuit and their former glory: all of the whereas stopping an evil group from taking up, probably saving humanity within the course of. You’ll do this by warping to totally different biomes/sandboxes to take down bounty targets (bosses). It’s a tall order.

To perform all this, you’ll be thrusted right into a first-person viewpoint, with locomotion choices like a jetpack and a grappling hook (which might connect to hooks or grappling traces that you could slide down); in addition to sentient weapons that considerably resemble a pistol, a shotgun, a rapid-fire SMG, and an alien-summoning…factor. All of those instruments have an alternate fireplace of types, which usually double as puzzle-solving tech.

The weirdness of all of it is definitely the perfect half. Like many Roiland joints, Excessive on Life is full of twists, meta humor, and Easter eggs. There’s bizarre optionally available menu-based boards to learn full of jokes that you just don’t really want to have interaction with, random alleys which have fascinating NPC interactions that serve no goal aside from to make you snicker, and good quaint online game secrets and techniques. The humor will likely be hit or miss for a lot of although (simply watch some gameplay to see in the event you vibe), and I felt like Squanch Video games’ earlier effort (Trover Saves the Universe) was funnier: due to the way in which the sport riffs off of the Trover character, somewhat than a clean slate.

Gameplay-wise, Excessive on Life is what I’d name a “serviceable” shooter. The workforce does a very good job at making every weapon distinctive, from the straightforward truth that each one of them speak (and are all voiced by comedians), to the aforementioned alt-fire mechanics. There may be an incentive to make use of all of them, and in practically each fight sequence I used to be swapping weapons and wielding their particular strengths (the “set it and overlook it” nature of firing off goons with the summoning gun, then swapping to one thing else, is enjoyable). There are some cool battlegrounds too, the place you need to use the grappling hook function on full show, dashing and jetpacking round like a madman when you intention.

The place Excessive on Life actually falters is enemy selection. In any given zone, there’s often a typical trash/fodder enemy that slowly fires a pistol, some small flying UFO/drone factor, and a much bigger elite that make up 90% of the collective you’ll be preventing. That precept applies to a variety of video games, however none of these three sorts are significantly thrilling, or are even distinctive from zone to zone. Bosses are generally a vibrant spot, however a little bit of jank (extra on that later) form of sucked the spark out of a number of encounters.

Whereas these excessive octane moments I discussed earlier do exist, they’re not widespread. Quite a lot of zones actually lack oomph, and simply throw enemies from the identical few doorways at you till you’re allowed to proceed. Different sequences straight-up can help you skip each enemy fully, which is straightforward to do by the point you get the jetpack. Throw in a extremely shoddy goal marker and a little bit of imprecise space design and you’ve got an annoyance stew goin’.

Relying in your view of puzzles in shooters, the way in which Excessive on Life handles them is both going to be a boon or a burden. They’re actually breezy, so in the event you typically hate them, you’re going to be comfortable. I’m form of on a case-by-case foundation, however I’d have most popular if the puzzle complexity right here was dialed-up only a bit.

One large subject with Excessive on Life (and the place the sport primarily slipped for me) is jank. In my run I had a number of important path doorways that wouldn’t open, or a delay in just a few related sequences. I used to be capable of sidestep these with a swift checkpoint reload, however in a single specific case I wasn’t conscious that there was even a problem for 20 minutes: as my goal was listed as “???” and I assumed there was some form of set off I wanted to hit earlier than realizing that I used to be caught in a glitch. There’s a day one patch coming at launch (December 13) with fixes and high quality of life upgrades, however I didn’t have entry to it, and can’t verify it addresses all the things.

As-is, Excessive on Life is nice weekend Sport Go pickup, and one thing to enter with warning in the event you’re a fan of Roiland’s work. I recognize what Squanch Video games is doing within the business as an entire, however Trover Saves the Universe was a significantly better distillation of Roiland and firm’s humor in a sounder package deal.