“Living” weapons speak to the player in a whimsical world and incorporate elements of combat, puzzle-solving, and new path-finding
Fighting and shooting games, by their very nature, lack an element of humor. However, this did not hinder the development of the game “High on Life”, which presents the elements of this category of games, accompanied by a barrage of funny phrases that do not end throughout the duration of the game. This game offers a new flavor in a category of games that have become somewhat repetitive. Asharq Al-Awsat tested the game on the Xbox Series X, and we mention a summary of the experience.
A funny story across the galaxy
The game revolves around a high school graduate with no job or ambition until evil aliens invade Earth to use humans as drugs. The player begins the journey of earning money using “live” weapons that talk to him continuously and funny, called “Gatlians”, so that he must roam the galaxy and collect the necessary resources and interact with many unique characters with the aim of confronting the leader of alien creatures to save humanity.
The player uses 5 “live” weapons, each with 3 different abilities that help the player in fighting different types of enemies and moving through the stages, in addition to providing a knife that has only one ability. The special ability of each weapon can be used to solve different puzzles, in addition to the player obtaining and developing abilities as they progress through the stages, through special stores or in hidden chests.
It is worth noting that the developer of the funny animated series Rick and Morty and Solar Opposites has contributed to the development of this game; Which means that the funny sentences are thought out by someone who has a lot of experience in this field.
Fun gaming features
The game offers a combat and exploration mode that requires the player to obtain new abilities and return to previous locations in order to reach areas that were impossible to reach before using those abilities. The player must fight to cross dangerous places before reaching specific objectives and fighting big enemies. The player must time his jumps between different platforms and buildings to reach different places or solve puzzles to unlock new ways to progress. He can also interact with and talk to the characters of the game world in many areas.
And the player will feel that each weapon has its own personality, whether from its funny talk with the player or its appearance with its funny eyes, and many other factors, to the point that they will become friends with it during the fun adventure. The player can choose some responses when talking to the weapons, but they are the main characters in the game instead of the silent playable character. The player will listen to the words and anecdotes of weapons for about 12 hours without feeling the repetition of specific sentences, which is important when interacting with characters accompanying the player throughout his digital journey.
The game breaks the barrier of the “fourth wall”, that is, it realizes that it is a game and there are other games, to talk to the player about it, such as the player facing a puzzle and his gun saying that the design of this stage is not good, and that the game will get bad reviews from newspapers and game evaluation sites. , or simulating enemy combat in a manner similar to that in the game Metal Gear Solid, or fighting alien children because the weapon says that fighting children in the game will make it lose the evaluation that it is suitable for all ages. It should be noted that some of the funny conversations take an adult turn, so the game has been rated as suitable for those aged 17 or over. One of the funny things about the game is the presence of a cinema that shows a complete horror movie from the year 1990 called Demon Wind, which lasts an hour and a half, and which can be watched and listened to as characters in the cinema comment on its events.
Cosmic adventures with funny weapons in the game “High on Life”
Technical specifications
The game’s graphics are very beautiful and full of color, a feature absent from most first-person shooter and fighting games that often paint a dark world in relatively dark colors. The player will see worlds full of forests, nuclear-saturated rivers, bizarrely colored houses, unique valleys and deserts. The game uses a “rubber” mechanism to move the weapons, which increases its fun and gives it a nice distinction during the course of the battles.
It can be said that the game is an interactive cartoon because of its unique graphic style, and the funny acoustics in everything; From the sounds of gunshots, adding bullets to weapons, defeating enemies and falling to the ground, and others. The player can also adjust and reduce the amount of non-essential dialogue in the game if they need to focus more on the game world than the weapons and other characters say.
As for the technical specifications required for the work of the game, it is the “Intel Core i5 4430” quad-core processor at 3 GHz (it is recommended to use the “Intel Core i5 6402” quad-core processor at 2.8 GHz, or “AMD Ryzen 5 2600” at 3.4 GHz , or better), and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with 3GB of graphics memory or an AMD Radeon R9 290X with 4GB of graphics memory (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 recommended) With 6 GB of graphics memory, or AMD RX5600XT (6 GB of graphics memory or better), 8 GB of memory, 50 GB of storage, Windows 10 64-bit.
Information about the game
> Programmer: Squanch Games www.SquanchGames.com
> Publisher: «Squanch Games» Squanch Games www.SquanchGames.com
> Game type: First-person Shooter
> Gaming devices: “Xbox Series S and X” and “Xbox One” and personal computer
> Launch date: 12 – 2022
> ESRB rating: 17 years or older
> Multiplayer support: No