High on Life

A HUGE thank you to Squanch Games, FiftyCC, and TaraBrunoPR for providing a copy of this game for us to review!

High on Life is a first-person shooter from the genius mind of Justin Roiland. Humanity is being threatened by an alien cartel that wants to turn humans all into drugs. Now, with an army of talking, modifiable guns and a satanic knife obsessed with killing, you will travel across a variety of locations across the universe like western-themed sewers, jungle paradises, and even a city built inside of an asteroid. Collect loot and use the unique skills of each weapon to track down the cartel and complete hunter challenges to keep your skills in tip top shape. Will you be able to save humanity?

High on Life is quite possibly one of the funniest games I have played this year. The gunplay is great, the visuals are stunning, but that humor that Justin Roiland is known for gets me every time. From a weird alien mistaking your sister as your mom to a red guy claiming he got surgery to stop pooping to make him more attractive, there's just so much humor injected in and feels great coming from just random interactions initiated by your talking gun. Being able to play this on the Deck would be a dream come true, so let's dive in and show you how to optimize this wonderful game!

High on Life: Max Settings

On max settings, High on Life has issues staying above 30 FPS. While standing still can go over, as soon as you start moving, it will drop framerate down to sub 25 frames with a 22-24W drain and 80c temps. It isn't ideal, but changing some settings can really help this game shine!

High on Optimization

Through my testing with High on Life, there was a multitude of options I tested. I started off trying to hit 40 FPS, but to do this required too many compromises and more battery drain than I was hoping to have. I elected to go for a visual focus at 30 FPS as my recommended as it was also more stable and less stressful on the battery.

With a mix of high and medium settings, with foilage on low, I was able to sustain a stable 30 FPS under a 16W drain with the game looking absolutely gorgeous. The reason foilage is on low is primarily due to the forest biome where plants and grass make up vast amounts of the area, which will slow down the framerate a bit.

I wanted to make a 40 FPS build regardless, so I did end up finding some solid settings for it. The game looked a bit worse, and drained more than I wanted it to, but it was able to get the job done and I was happy with it.

I could have pushed graphical settings down a bit more to save battery or increase stability, but taking shadows and post processing effects below "Medium" made High on Life look completely different. Those shadows feel almost necessary once you see them.

I did also try other Proton settings, as well as forcing DX11 to see if performance would improve, but it either did nothing or created massive stuttering.

Framerate Issues and Loading

In High on Life, it does seem that there are a couple of areas that tend to drop frames regardless of what is going on. The biggest one I have seen that feels odd is underneath a diner's outside area. When you are walking through, your framerate will drop to 22 - 24 FPS. But as soon as you stop moving, the framerate will go right back to normal. There are a couple of other areas like this, like a few spots in the jungle, but this one is by far the worst.

I also noticed some immense slowdowns when loading into new places. A couple times frames would drop below 10 and one time my game seemed to freeze for a solid 10 seconds before it going back to normal. Though these issues aren't super common and doesn't affect the most important parts where frames and stability are needed, combat!

I also want to mention there is no mixed input support, which means no gyro. I hope this is something Squanch Games will add to High on Life since that would make aiming much more precise on with this gamepad.

Conclusion

High on Life is by far one of the funniest games I have played this year. The humor is overflowing, the locations are gorgeous, and combat is addicting. As a game itself, I highly recommend playing it, especially if you enjoy this humor. Enemies are able to absorb some bullets, and some bosses have a bit more health than they should, but it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the game. And thanks to these settings, I would say it is very playable on the Steam Deck, albeit with some compromises!

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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