High on Life review – limp gunplay and questionable taste

Xbox, PC; Squanch Games
This first-person shooter from Rick and Morty's co-creator pairs a barrage of nihilistic jokes with flimsy gameplay

I honestly can't tell you whether High on Life is funny. Humour is subjective, sure, but also, after eight hours of this game's rapid-fire jokes, I'm not sure I even know any more. You spend enough time spacefaring in Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland's orbit and eventually, you get sucked into the void. It's no longer a series of clearly delineated jokes, more a transcendental oneness with an eternal bit. Body fluids. Self-reflexive observations. Observations about the self-reflexive observations. Casual misanthropy. More body fluids. You switch from a grin to a grimace every 15 seconds and at some point, your face just goes numb.

I can tell you that this game is consistently creative, even when new studio Squanch's design chops fail them. You play a nameless teen bounty hunter paired up with a talking gun, travelling the universe attempting to free humanity from an alien crime syndicate that wants to use us as drugs. Along the way, you'll use your chattering gun's abilities to solve traversal puzzles in a Metroid Prime sort of way, and do a lot of shooting. There are some genuinely nifty and thoughtful combat options, like a ricocheting sawblade that you can bonk back at baddies, or a shotgun that hoovers protective slime from your foes.

High on Life is out now; 46.49, or included with a Game Pass subscription