Justin Roiland: High On Life Features 'So Many' Secrets Players Will Be 'Discovering For Months'

Is there a typo or there is a guy called Hoiland in Roiland & Co?

I'd rather they use the time to make the core game work better myself. Its a colourful world I might wish to explore if the gunplay wasn't so poor.
For some inexplicable reason, I know many people who are prepared to look past that, or not even acknowledge its poor, so I hope the extras are good fun for them!

Despite my feelings on the title, I'm really glad the devs have a mainly positive reception, as passionate developers deserve to see people appreciate what they laboured to produce

@Titntin I don’t understand what makes the gunplay so poor? It plays just like any other first person shooter in my opinion. Maybe it’s just me - I simply haven’t had an issue with it, and I think it’s pretty solid with a variety of weapons that are fun to use and spice up different combinations.

@BlackMayge Yeah I saw from your comments in the review that you loved the title, so you you are one of the people who I hope enjoy finding all the little secrets You are certainly not alone either, with several people not understanding the issues some people have with the game.
But I'm also not alone, with many experienced gamers feeling the same as me - this just doesn't cut it.
Nobodies right of course, but I think its fair to say that people are divided as to if the gunplay is good or not..

The game is far from perfect but a lot of passionate work seems to have gone into it. I’ve seen various clips on Reddit of funny little Easter eggs and side jokes, one saying you’ve broke the game and you’re going onto squanch games naughty list, for example. People seem to be really enjoying it, despite its flaws, that’s all that matters. Not every game has to be a technical masterpiece.

@Titntin I wasn’t trying to sound rude, so I apologize if I came across that way. I was just wondering, in your opinion, what makes the gunplay not that good? Is it the controls or something deeper? I’m just curious so I can try to understand the view point of others.

Wait, this game has a golden path? I thought it just kind of dumped you in labyrinthine areas hoping you'll find which samey looking path exits it?

That's a good callout comparing it to Fallout 3, though. I really see the similarities. Audio dropouts, crashes, framerate drops into slideshows, horribly bad gunplay, questionable navigation....

@Titntin I, too, am bewildered by the number of people that don't have an issue with the gameplay. At first I thought people just gave it a pass because they like Roiland's writing, but no, they really don't seem to see anything wrong with the gameplay.

It really is a shame because the world and art are great. It's the gameplay (and writing) that kill it. Which, I'd rather have ugly games that play well than pretty games that don't. This could have been really cool given more care.

Impressed with the Roiland interview though. Never seen him before, and from his writing I'd pictured a kind of obnoxious hard to take guy, but he's very much the opposite of his writing. Hard to imagine the writing is from him, really.

This game was unfairly slammed by reviewers. I've played about 3.5 hours now and beaten the first 3 bosses. So far the exprience has been great. The guns are not annoying as many reviewers say, the humour isn't that funny either but as a whole the game is good, it's one of the better day 1 games that's been added to gamepass this year.

I think this game is excellent!! It’s ***** hilarious!!!

I thought it was decent for what it was. Had a good time and it didn't overstay its welcome. 10 or so hours for the story and some exploring.

@NEStalgia I think the gunplay is bang average but does its job. Opinion on this game purely seems to hinge on its humour and writing. If people like that I think it’s probably enough for them to have a good time with it. I gave it another shot last night and restarted the game, I got further in and enjoyed it but I’ll never argue that the gameplay is anything more than average.

In a strange way the game reminds me of ‘Stray’. Another bang average game that people seemed to really enjoy.

@Fenbops The first half of Stray was great. The second half fell apart. The ending was garbage. But the game always felt good to CONTROL (except the shooty bits....why was that even there?) The character responded well, had a good sense of physics, etc. High on Life otoh somehow takes Doom 93 shooting but makes it feel slow, inaccurate, and unsatisfying, with slow, unfun, inaccurate guns against really bad enemies with tiny hit boxes. And it's attempt at emulating the weapons triangle of modern Doom with Knifey works as a gag joke for gamers, but gets old when the poor melee option becomes standard repeating gameplay. It really just tries to make a real gameplay mechanic out of a one-time-use gag. I think that's a big problem with it. It gets so lost in it's own joke of being a meta pastiche on gaming, that it starts taking the pastiche seriously, very quickly, and starts thinking that's an actual game design and forces you to play it.

@BlackMayge Absolutely no rudeness detected mate, we are just having a polite conversation!
I'm afraid I'm not the best wordsmith to pin point what I don't like about the gunplay, I'm no shill from skillup! But there was something I found almost rudimentary about the way it works.
I guess I'd prefer a slightly faster turn so I could react quicker. I never find the knife satisfying as I get no feeling of impact using it and somehow the grappling feels really clunky - I didnt enjoy that first boss fight where you have to grapple to stay in the air for instance:) Maybe I'm just rubbish, but it just does not feel tight and responsive like Halo infinite (to quote one of the best feeling to me.. dislike the game, but love those controls...)
Its clearly personal preference as so many are fine with it
I'm still mildly intrigued by the world they have created - its colourful and interesting even if a little clunky. I may return to the game, turn the difficulty right down (seeing as how I don't enjoy the fighting anyway) and just experience the world and whatever story they have to tell.
The humour is fine for me, I watch Rick and Morty anyway and am not mortally offended by much, though I do understand those that dislike it too..

@BlackMayge @Titntin To me the issue with the shooting is controls, responsiveness, etc. The controls feel very tank-like with no subtlety in movement. The guns are given no weight, including the knife, there's nothing impactful that conveys the sense of using weapons, hitting targets. Even old games like Doom and Quake managed to convey a sense of weight and impact. The aim is somewhat random, enemies offer no real interesting challenge to hit, they just kind of randomly act as target practice, and the hitboxes feel very tiny for weapons that are so inaccurate. Plus a sense of latency in the inputs. Shooting, moving and aiming is functional, but nothing about doing so is actually FUN to make you want to continue doing it vs, say Halo and it's tight, weighty guns, or new Doom with it's very Visceral, adrenaline-pumping "one melee away from death" gameplay. This tries to do both, but doesn't really have a carefully balanced system or nuanced controls, the shooting is just kind of "there" because the game world needed some sort of gameplay rather than having a fun gameplay design to build a world around. You don't shoot enemies because shooting enemies feels fun. You to it to get them out of the way to get to the next location.

Beyond that navigation points are frustrating. It points to an absolute location, that's not always the right one, as the crow flies, meaning it leads you in the wrong direction more often than the right direction, making navigation one of those "wander around the now empty level trying to find which identical looking trail is the one you haven't tried yet." That was common in 90's shooters, but I forgot that kind of design was so frustrating.

@NEStalgia see I disagree. I play on the series x and it runs very smooth and stable. I think the game is amazing and the comedy really pushes this game forward and the gunplay. Yeah it's not bad. It's okay But there's so much comedy and so many interesting things to explore. Lots of items like boots and jetpacks and the boss fights at a little bit of variety and it's a beautiful game to explore. The areas are very unique, different and every gun has a contextual message and what he says and what area. So there's a lot of replay value. But yeah another game is definitely not perfect. It's an eight for sure. 7 to 8:00 is the score just like IGN but what's really going to make this game or break? It is the type of people that like it. If you're sensitive like most people nowadays to raunchy comedy then yeah it's not for you. But if you're like me and you come from the error when Al Bundy and married with the children and still find it funny which I do then. Yeah this raunchy comedy is perfect right up that alley and if your stoned even more hilarious! But yeah I can see everybody has their own opinion on everything and that's okay. I think for what it is it's pretty decent game. It's definitely hit their best game to date and again, the comedy really makes it or breaks this game what

It's a lot of fun and the humours great, thought I'd get sick of mortys voice but no, very funny in bits

@Titntin
"Its a colourful world I might wish to explore if the gunplay wasn't so poor."
The gunplay was "so poor" in your opinion?
Were you expecting Battle Field type mechanics?
Because for the style of game, it does offer a nice variety of unique style/play style weapons once you get into the game a bit.
Paired with the Jet Pack and power slide, The gunplay really is not the part I find to be lacking in my opinion.
My biggest con for the game would definitely have to be enemy variety. I have taken out 5 of the Drug Lords and there are still the same yellow big eyeball head grunts constantly and for just how beautiful and unique the world/setting is in the game. It would have been nice to see maybe like 3 different factions to give it a bit more variety.
Actually their was the ant enemies at the start of the game... They should have mixed them in more through out the game.

Gunplay though, not nearly as poor as you are making it out to be.

@Stoned_Patrol Thats fair enough comment, and as I mentioned in my last post, I've returned to the game and knocked the difficulty down to simply explore more of the world. The updates which made the framerate better certainly seem to help, and now everything drops quicker its certainly servicable, though it has none of tautness and impact of a game like halo.
The game is still a long way from being polished though. You mentioned the lack of enemy types, which is an issue, but the ai driving them is like going back to the 90s, making the core mechanic of the game a lot less than it could have been.
Regardless, the world is bright and colourful and im still taking the time to explore it all as I finish the game. I originally agreed with the review here and thought 4 was what is deserved as per the review here, but following patches and more play it has to be worth a 6 😁

I've been enjoying HoL a lot, but agree that the gunplay is mostly bad. Aiming isn't crisp and there's a TON of auto-aim to make up for it. I upped the difficulty early to stop the enemies from standing around, that helped a bit, but wish the devs gave you more unlocks earlier.

That said, the game is at it's best when you're taking in its weird world. I wish there were more small moments to interact with characters (beyond dialog) and a lot less wave shooting. Still, for a sophomore effort, Squanch Games has done a very good job IMO.

@Titntin
I am on the last boss now. And the level of difficulty in certain spot definitely raises the bar from the beginning of the game. I wouldnt saythe AI is above par, but I also wouldnt say it is anything less then the last assassins creed game or pretty much any game. Video game AI is dumbed down on purpose. They could easily have to proform like a well trained assassin, but being a computer and all, that just would not be fun. They actually program it to not pick up the loot that we are gong to grab, and stuff like that. But it also is definitely able to be programmed to be unstoppable against us. I have a feeling a big improvement in AI is going to be right around the corner, because visuals are getting to be less and less of a jump and they are working on AI for a lot of stuff now.