Squanch Games has brought us their first title. From the glorious mind of Justin Roiland, one of the co-creators of the award-winning TV series, Rick & Morty, comes High On Life, which is available from day one on Xbox Game Pass, or, if you don’t have Game Pass, you can purchase this title on the Xbox Series S|X and PC.

High On Life starts somewhere we all recognise, Earth, where you begin your adventure by playing a video game inside of the video game. Your world turns upside down when the notorious group known as the “G3 Cartel” are planning to kidnap the whole of humanity and turn them into weird space drugs. You end up meeting Kenny, a talking gun, as you search the pockets of a dead alien, and the real adventure begins.

Kenny talks you into finding someone named Gene, a well-known alien bounty hunter, and it turns out he is washed up and turned lazy. Never actually firing a weapon before, you become the bounty hunter, whilst Gene is slowly taking over your house. The number of places you can visit, alien species you can meet, and aliens you can put in the ground makes for an incredibly enjoyable story.

The controls have been configured really well, and everything felt like it had been perfectly adjusted for the task at hand. One of the most frustrating aspects of adventure games is when they have you swinging from one rope to another, only to somehow miss and fall to your death.

That’s not the case with High on Life, and using Knifey to swing from drone to drone to get yourself out of trouble during a boss fight left you feeling more heroic than frustrated. Everything works how you expect it to, and there was no delay when pulling the trigger to pop the head off an alien, making the game that much more enjoyable. As you play you’ll acquire different weapons, with each weapon having different abilities. These help with environmental puzzles and allows you to go back to previously visited locations to reach areas you couldn’t before.

The art style in this game was more than I could have expected. It was a surprisingly good combination of super realistic with a cartoonish look and feel at the same time. The character models and environment look remarkable and so real, whilst the weapons you play with have a cartoonish look and feel that draws inspiration from Justin’s famous show.

There were a couple of alien models that I feel could have used a little more touching up, but they did not take away from the beautiful environment and the cuter-looking aliens you can befriend during your journey in the universe.

In-game audio was easily my favourite part of High on Life, and the voice acting was the most impressive thing I’ve heard in a long time. One of the main aspects of this game is the fact the weapons can speak to you and their dialogue is something else. I’m sure fans of Rick & Morty can expect nothing less. I was getting abused by my weapon if I was busy writing down notes for the review and not moving in the game.

The dialogue from the characters did not disappoint either, from how they reacted when you raised a weapon to them, to how they reacted after you had shot them several times. This is the first title I’ll quite happily say the audio was 11/10. It was amazing. Whilst running around the universe, there are areas where you’ll hear some sci-fi-like music that you would expect from an alien-inhabited island. The sound effects from the guns are not what you would expect, sounding nothing like a typical firearm, but I’ll leave that bit up to your imagination.

This game is free with Xbox Game Pass and you would be insane not to get it. It has an amazing mix of killing, jokes, and some super dark humour, ticking all the boxes for me. It’s everything you can expect from the mind of Justin Roiland.

Written by: Hayden Nelson