![\"High](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/SEI_285308365-5de8.jpg\")
\n\t\tHigh On Life 2 \u2013 at least it works now (Squanch Games)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tHigh On Life 2 \u2013 at least it works now (Squanch Games)<\/p>\n
Now that the day one patch has fixed most of the technical problems, GameCentral offers a final verdict on the Justin Roiland-less sequel to High On Life.<\/p>\n
Humour isn\u2019t an easy thing to get right, especially in in video games<\/a>, where players have such a large influence on when and how they experience the action and the dialogue that punctuates it. Comic timing is hard when you might not be listening to or even looking at whoever\u2019s trying to be funny. The first High On Life<\/a> went full Rick and Morty<\/a>, appealing directly to the show\u2019s considerable following, and thanks to the involvement of its creator, Justin Roiland, the anarchic first person shooter was an instant hit.<\/p>\n Roiland also voiced the game\u2019s first weapon. Because your protagonist was entirely mute, and each gun had its own distinct and exaggerated personality, they did all the talking for you, conversations changing radically depending on which gun you equipped. Since Roiland\u2019s no longer involved with Squanch Games, his idiosyncratic vocal style and particular brand of brutal humour are also absent.<\/p>\n That gives High On Life 2 a different feel. For a start, it\u2019s not as funny, with more of its bits landing with a wry smile rather than actual laughter, and long tracts of the game now relying on the boorish personalities of your weapons. While they certainly have their moments, they sometimes seem to rely on swearing as a substitute for jokes. It does manage to improve on the first game in some ways though, one being its more pointed satire.<\/p>\n In High On Life, aliens discovered they could smoke humans like pot and your character\u2019s job was to gun down the galactic drug cartel responsible. In the sequel, humans are being farmed and turned into legally manufactured pills by an evil pharmaceutical conglomerate whose ruthless pursuit of profit, regardless of the human misery it causes, may not be too distant from actual big pharma.<\/p>\n Traversal has been streamlined with the addition of a skateboard. Now the sprint button hops you onto your board, letting you move faster and grind rails, something every environment in the game has plenty of. You also gain access to your knife\u2019s grapple hook right at the start of the game, rather than towards the end. Along with your double jump and air dash, it makes getting around the game\u2019s vertiginous, brightly coloured levels less painful than it could have been.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\tExpert, exclusive gaming analysis\t\t\t<\/p>\n Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter<\/a> for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The final upgrade is to the gunplay. There was a lot wrong with High On Life\u2019s shooting, from the apparent puniness of many of its weapons, to the annoyingly stodgy feel of aiming, and although the sequel improves on every aspect, it\u2019s still some way short of being actively good. Despite being a first person shooter, its firefights are something to be endured rather than enjoyed, even if boss fights are occasionally more inventive.<\/p>\n You can tell Squanch knew things weren\u2019t working properly because the game defaults to easy mode rather than normal. A quick experiment reveals why: in normal, fights are a mess. Enemies are inveterate bullet sponges and you regularly find yourself being killed by opponents you can\u2019t even see. On easy, its untidy and defuse battles are at least manageable. The downside is that you\u2019re practically invincible, making it feel as though little skill\u2019s involved, the auto aim continually patronising you.<\/p>\n Puzzles, such as they are, are spelt out for you in the early part of the game, with both onscreen instructions and characters simply telling you what to do, often repeating themselves after a few seconds if you don\u2019t act quickly enough. High On Life 2 emphatically isn\u2019t a puzzle game, but it\u2019s odd to include those elements, and then paper over them with overbearing announcements \u2013 the time it must have taken to add all that would have been better spent polishing the rest of its mechanics.<\/p>\n It also suffers from a clutch of technical issues. Until the day one patch arrived, an early boss fight was unplayable on PlayStation 5<\/a>, crashing the console on every attempt. Even after the patch we soon found ourselves soft-locked after a Lugblob, one of High On Life 2\u2019s grotesque key items, failed to spawn. Reloading the checkpoint and restarting the game didn\u2019t help, although we did finally manage to glitch our way past it in what was clearly not the intended solution to the puzzle. Fortunately, that was the last significant problem in our playthrough.<\/p>\n Underneath its unrefined exterior, there\u2019s a riot of offbeat and anarchic ideas, from its playable retro style arcade games to full length B-movies you can sit and watch; a boss that infiltrates your HUD and menus, forcing you to pause the game to fight him; and, of course, the absurdist weaponry. It\u2019s even got an Agatha Christie style murder mystery. It\u2019s just a shame they\u2019re all so uninspiring to play.<\/p>\n High On Life 2 is frustratingly close to being a good game, but its rough edges predominate to the extent that they drown out much of the inventiveness. Shooting up groups of enemies just isn\u2019t much fun, but neither are the minigames, and now that the dialogue isn\u2019t as funny, there just isn\u2019t enough joy to be had. With more polish those crazy ideas could really shine, but as it stands this feels more miss than hit.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\tHigh On Life 2 review\t\t\t<\/p>\n In Short: An inventive sequel whose small improvements in gameplay can\u2019t make up for tedious firefights and minigames, and a less witty script.<\/p>\n Pros: Brimming with eccentric ideas and colourful environments. The skateboard makes traversal less of a chore and one of your guns is voiced by Ralph Ineson.<\/p>\n Cons: Shooting action and minigames fail to entertain. Conversations and monologues are rarely amusing enough to sustain their length. Still buggy even after the day one patch.<\/p>\n Score: 5\/10<\/p>\n Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X\/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC \t\t Email\u00a0gamecentral@metro.co.uk<\/a>, leave a comment below,\u00a0follow us on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n To submit Inbox letters and Reader\u2019s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our\u00a0Submit Stuff page here<\/a>.<\/p>\n For more stories like this,\u00a0check our Gaming page<\/a>.<\/p>\n Arrow Arrow Arrow
Price: \u00a349.99
Publisher: Squanch Games
Developer: Squanch Games
Release Date: 13th February 2026 (20\/4 on Switch 2)
Age Rating: 18<\/p>\n![\"High](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/SEI_285308354-5fb0.jpg\")
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