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There is an opinion that to understand humor in "Rike and Morty" you need a very high IQ. People who have it probably suffer because of how few games suit them! Studio Squanch Games saves the situation – this team was founded more than six years ago Justin Roiland (Justin Roiland), creator of that same animated series. All the games he released boast the same absurd humor – and Accounting, and Trover Saves the Universe, and the recently released High on Life . With every release the team Roiland I’m becoming more and more experienced, but there’s still room to grow.

There can never be too many jokes

If Trover saved the Universe, then this time we need to save the Earth. She was attacked by the alien G3 cartel, who wanted to capture people and turn them into a hallucinogenic drug. To prevent this, you need to destroy several leaders. A difficult task falls on the shoulders of an ordinary teenager who received an alien pistol at the beginning of the game. There are no other candidates – the only bounty hunter who could do a better job retired and gave his equipment to the protagonist.

Although the premise here is a little less absurd than in the studio’s previous game, the degree of humor increases every minute, and jokes pour in like a cornucopia. Then you find out which of the two aliens guarding the gate is more attractive, and depending on your choice, go to the left or right door – this, of course, does not affect anything. Then you help the adorable octopus solve puzzles with pipes so that he can get to the next location. “Did you go to puzzle school??» – he asks at the last riddle; in any other game the joke would seem stupid, but here it fits perfectly.

Of course, there are really bad jokes, but there are surprisingly few of them. Even banalities become funnier thanks to excellent presentation. Everything fits together perfectly here: numerous actors clearly get a kick out of the voice acting, the characters look different from each other and cause laughter just by their appearance, and the colorful and varied locations make the adventure not boring. It’s not complete without breaking the fourth wall, video game references and humor below the belt, and the icing on the cake was the appearance of several full-length films of the last century. Where else would you watch a tape called "Vampire whores"?

The main stars are the guns that don’t stop talking for a minute. The first pistol is especially good – he was voiced by himself Roiland, and his mastery of improvisation (and many lines were clearly not prepared in advance) can only be envied. Even when he repeats the same thing, he does it as if it should be so. The guns comment on your actions, remind you of gameplay possibilities, scream instead of the main character when he falls into the abyss, and sometimes complain that hanging around in a holster is boring if you haven’t used them for a long time. In the settings you can make the characters less talkative, but I find it difficult to understand why, in this case, even go through such a game.

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But there is a problem – there is no translation in any form. I rarely pay attention to this in reviews, but here the case is special: there is too much dialogue, the actors chatter, and many phrases are heard during firefights, so it’s difficult to catch every joke. If you don’t know English well, you’ll enjoy the game much less than you could – the humor here is mostly conversational, not visual.

Entertain yourself

The gameplay here is not ideal, but the new product does not seem like a low-budget craft either. The authors were clearly inspired by Metroid: the main character constantly receives not only new guns, but also abilities like a dash, a jetpack, the ability to cling to ledges with a whip, and so on. At early levels, some chests that contain collectibles and currency for purchasing upgrades cannot be opened immediately – you are expected to return later for them with the necessary equipment. I wouldn’t say that the game encourages you to spend time on this, but those who like to complete everything 100% will have something to do.

In battles, as in dialogues, guns also shine. Each of them has not only a regular fire mode, but also an alternative one. The starting pistol, for example, shoots gobs of goo that knock up opponents if they explode near them, and turn opponents into flying targets for a couple of seconds. And Sweezy’s gun, which looks like a fish with a punk hairstyle (or a needle gun from Halo), not only allows you to wound aliens through cover – you can shoot enemies with needles, and then blow them up with a punch or an enhanced shot.

My favorite thing was Gus – a shotgun, perfectly voiced by a comedian JB Smoove (J. B. Smoove) and shaped like a plump frog. It’s not very good as a shotgun, but its alternative mode is great: you release a circular saw that bounces from one opponent to another, and after a couple of such bounces it flies in your direction. If you press the strike button at the right time, you will knock the saw off and it will fly back to your opponents. You can repeat the process until everyone is dead or until you miss a hit. By the way, grenades thrown by aliens can be thrown away in the same way.

It’s a pity, the game doesn’t really try to put you in conditions where you need to use the entire arsenal. I think you can easily complete almost everything with a pistol, switching to something else only to solve puzzles. The arenas are quite primitive, there are not enough types of enemies, and the artificial intelligence is stupid – sometimes opponents hide behind covers, but very soon they either stick their heads out or crawl out of safe places and run away to the side. There were times when I died even on medium difficulty, but this had nothing to do with the intelligence of the enemies – rather, because of their stupidity, I became too arrogant and almost ran into the crowd.

But the authors High on Life came up with an original damage system. Here the enemies are covered with yellow slime, and the more often you hit them, the thinner its layer becomes. When you throw away grenades, use alternative fire modes and explode barrels, you very quickly notice the “skinny” aliens, which only take two or three hits. Subsequently, the game will even explain what kind of slime this is. They can come up with an alternative to the health scale whenever they want!

Where you shoot, those parts of the body are damaged.

I also praise the battles with bosses, which are much more fun than clashes with ordinary aliens. You need to hide behind cover, and constantly move, and use a whip – either shells fly, or areas appear on the floor where it is undesirable to stand for a long time. Ultimately, you still have to shoot a large enemy with a ton of health, but it’s still more fun than the arena shootouts that get boring in the second half of the game.

High on Life has already won the love of the public, not only among Game Pass subscribers (in the first days after release, the new product was among the top five most popular games on Xbox), but also on Steam. Apparently, gamers miss humorous shooters devoid of seriousness and drama. It’s noticeable with what pleasure the developers created High on Life and how they fooled around in the process. As you progress, you plunge deeper and deeper into this absurd world, expecting new surprises and never ceasing to smile. The gameplay is not perfect, but the team is experienced Roiland is picking up very quickly – hopefully over time she can release something truly amazing.

Pros: a ton of good jokes; bright locations and charming characters; guns that tell stories and comment on the player’s actions do not get boring; alternative fire modes; great bosses.

Cons: without translation into Russian, many jokes will go unnoticed by the players; due to stupid artificial intelligence and boring arena design, battles with ordinary enemies bring little pleasure; humor is not for everyone – if "Rick and Morty" you don’t like it, there’s little chance of loving this game.