When the original High on Life launched, it landed with the subtle grace of a screeching asteroid. It was loud, colorful, and relentlessly talkative. It was a polarizing release that you either loved for its chaotic energy or hated for its refusal to ever be quiet. I fell firmly into the former camp. I loved the talking guns, the vibrant alien worlds, and the absolute absurdity of it all. Naturally, I went into the sequel on PC with high hopes. I wanted that same magic again, just bigger and better.
It took me about 16 or so hours to play through the main campaign and explore a fair bit of side content. However, that playtime may balloon quite a bit if you decide to sit down and watch all of the old, full-length films included in the game or play through the deep pull retro games like Mega 3D Noah's Ark, Bible Adventures, B.O.B., and more. It's a game that treads some familiar themes from the first game but with some unique twists that I won't spoil here. After rolling credits, I can confidently say that Squanch Games has delivered a sequel that fans of the first game will absolutely adore. It is a smarter, tighter, and mechanically superior experience. However, my enjoyment was frequently halted by a myriad of technical issues that range from minor annoyances to game-breaking crashes.
Gotta Go Fast
The single greatest improvement in High on Life 2 is the traversal system. The first game relied heavily on a jetpack that often felt a bit floaty and imprecise. The sequel completely changes the pace by introducing a skateboard, and it is a revelation.Traversing the game’s expanded environments on a skateboard is extremely fun. It turns what used to be mundane travel into a high-speed playground. You are not just walking from point A to point B anymore. You are grinding on massive alien pipelines, wall-riding across bottomless pits, and chaining tricks together to build momentum. The sense of speed is exhilarating. It fundamentally changes combat encounters as well. You can now zip around arenas at breakneck speeds, flanking enemies before they even know you are there. It feels fantastic to grind a rail, launch into the air, land a few critical shots, and continue your line without ever losing your momentum or stepping off the board. It gives the game a kinetic flow that the original title desperately needed.
The skateboard also ties heavily into the game's side content. Most major areas feature skate parks where you can take on specific challenges to collect the floating letters S-K-A-T-E-B-O-A-R-D. Collecting these sets allows you to turn them in elsewhere to unlock components for your board, making it significantly more damaging during combat encounters. Speaking of which, the skateboard is not just for travel. It is a viable weapon in its own right. You can use it to jump directly into enemies, smacking them away with satisfying force, or even fling it at enemies from a distance to deal some additional damage while you reload.
Guns with Personality
Of course, it would not be a High on Life game without the Gatlians. The talking guns are back, and the roster this time around is a fantastic mix of familiar faces from the first game alongside entirely new Gatlians introduced for the sequel. Each weapon has a distinct personality that bleeds into how they handle. One standout addition is a weapon capable of impaling enemies with electric spears, voiced by none other than Ralph Ineson. His gravelly, distinctive voice adds a wonderfully gritty texture to the otherwise colorful chaos. The banter between the guns feels natural and reactive to what you are doing on screen.Crucially, each of the guns' special abilities can be utilized to solve environmental puzzles or overcome obstacles in the world. Ralph Ineson's electric spear weapon, for example, can be used to create ziplines that grant access to secret locations or create traversal shortcuts across the map. The shotgun-like weapon named Gus, voiced once again by J. B. Smoove, can shoot out sawblades that embed themselves into walls, creating temporary platforms for you to jump up to. This design philosophy ensures that every weapon feels like a distinct and vital tool for both combat and traversing the environment.
A World Full of Secrets
Beyond the combat and comedy, the world design has seen a massive upgrade. The environments are dense with detail and invite exploration. I found myself constantly stopping to look for hidden paths and collectibles. I also made it a point to stop and chat with the random NPCs scattered around, many of whom had wild and often amusing stories to tell that added flavor to the universe. There were also plenty of pop culture references scattered throughout the game's environments and from NPC chatter.The game is packed with environmental puzzles that require you to use your specific gun abilities and skateboard tricks to solve. You might need to navigate one of Creature's children through a deadly laser maze to unlock a door that opens a new area of the map, or grind a complex rail sequence to reach a hidden alcove containing a collectible or a stash of money. These puzzles are a nice break from the shooting and reward you with currency to buy upgrades or even new cosmetics for your character, skateboard, or weapons. It makes the world feel like more than just a backdrop for battles. It feels like a place worth investigating.
There are several extremely unique areas and worlds to explore throughout High on Life 2. I wish I could tell you about them, but experiencing them for yourself is part of the joy. There are some truly unique locations and worlds in the High on Life 2 universe. Despite their major differences they still somehow all seem to fit perfectly in this wild and bonkers gaming universe that Squanch Games created.
Boss Fights and Humor
While the run-and-gun gameplay is solid, the boss fights are where the developers really flexed their creative muscles. In many shooters, boss battles can devolve into shooting a large enemy until its health bar depletes. High on Life 2 rejects that outdated design philosophy. Some of the boss fights in this game are extremely unique. They are not just combat challenges. They are puzzles that require you to utilize your entire arsenal and your movement abilities, and in some instances, you may even need to be familiar with navigating through your inventory and system settings to survive.One particularly memorable encounter requires you to solve a special tax code puzzle before the battle even begins. While it is presented as "galactic tax code," the questions are hilariously based on real-world, actual tax law. I have to say, my accounting degree from college finally paid off, and I am proud to report I aced the quiz on my first try.
One of the biggest talking points of the first game was its humor. It was constant, improvisational, and often overwhelming. High on Life 2 still has that DNA, but the humor is significantly more subdued this time around. The writers seem to have found a better balance. While there is still a decent amount of the shock value that defined the first game, the sequel leans far less heavily on it. Instead, the comedy relies more on character dynamics and situational absurdity. The characters do not talk over each other quite as often, and there are moments of genuine quiet where you can just appreciate the weirdness of the world. If the relentless chatter of the first game annoyed you, you will likely find this approach much more palatable.
That said, the game does sometimes suffer from a lack of "show, don't tell" when it comes to exposition. This is perhaps most evident with the game's main boss, who's mid-game reveal comes as a surprise but is also accompanied with him just explaining a bunch of things that happened, or things that he plans to do. It didn't happen terribly often, but when it did these moments of lore dump briefly took me out of the moment.
Technical Turbulence
Now we must discuss the technical state of the PC version. This is where things get ugly.High on Life 2 is built on Unreal Engine 5. While the engine allows for some stunning lighting and detailed environments, it also brings some familiar baggage. I played on a system equipped with a Ryzen 9 5900X and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080. While my GPU exactly matches the recommended specifications, my CPU is admittedly slightly less powerful than the recommended Intel Core i7-13700KF. Despite this, I encountered frequent framerate hitching. This is the dreaded open world traversal stutter that has become all too common in Unreal Engine 5 titles. Just as you pick up speed on your skateboard and start to enjoy the flow, the game hitches as it streams in new assets. It is jarring and pulls you right out of the experience.
It is also worth noting that I played using Nvidia driver version 591.74. During the pre-release review period, there was no indication that this driver might be problematic. However, after the game was released to the public, an update added a warning at launch stating that driver 591.74 has known issues with DirectX 12 and recommending version 591.86 or later. It is not clear to me if any of the performance issues or game crashes encountered were due to using this problematic Nvidia driver. However, looking at user comments on Steam after the game was released suggests that the game still suffers from extensive stability issues regardless of the driver version used.
The issues went far beyond just performance drops. I experienced a handful of full game crashes that sent me straight back to the desktop. These crashes appeared to happen at random, though a couple seemed directly tied to scene transitions.
Perhaps the most frustrating issue was a bizarre camera bug. During one chaotic section of the game, my camera would completely lock up. I literally could not move my camera unless I held down either mouse button to drag my view to where I wanted to look, acting strangely like the camera in an isometric RTS game. Even worse were the scripting breaks. On several occasions, scripted events failed to trigger fully, or enemies would clip into walls, rendering them unkillable and locking me in a room. These bugs forced me to reload prior checkpoints, losing progress and patience in equal measure.
Final Thoughts
High on Life 2 is a fantastic sequel buried under a layer of technical grime. The skateboarding is a joy, the boss fights are inventive, and the writing is a marked improvement over the original. It is a game that clearly loves its world and wants you to have fun in it.Fans of the first game will love the sequel. It takes everything that worked before and refines it. However, until patches are released to address the stability issues and the Unreal Engine 5 stutter, it is a difficult recommendation to make without caveats. It is a blast to play when it works, but be prepared for a bumpy ride.
Score
Additional Information
- High on Life 2
- Developed by: Squanch Games
- Published by: Squanch Games
- Price: Starting at $59.99 (USD)
- Platform reviewed on: PC via Steam
- Also available on: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Game Pass, and Epic Games Store
- PC specs: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, Nvidia RTX 4080, 32GB DDR4 3600 RAM, 1440p resolution
- ESRB: M for Mature 17+ (Violence, blood and gore, strong sexual content, nudity, strong language, use of drugs, crude humor)
- This game was provided to Total Gaming Network for review purposes.
