What is the Joke of High on Life’s Shooting Kids Gag
High On Life is a shooter by Squanch Games that will be available on PC and Xbox starting December 13. While we have only seen a few vertical cuts, I am not feeling the vibe. A recent video from Gamescom has confirmed why. It has an entire segment about shooting a child in its alien world, but I don’t get the joke.
You have a gun that can send information to you. This gun is portrayed by Justin Roiland ( or, I’m not sure anymore ), whose voice you probably recognize from his role as Rick in Rick & Morty. His delivery seems to consist of a lot of talking. This is the general direction of the game. The script and performances don’t care about leaving out beats between dialogue for effect. Everyone says so many wild things that it doesn’t matter where they are. It’s just so funny and wacky. Although I have only seen a few clips of Rick & Morty, I can’t speak for the show in general. However, the criticisms of the Pickle Rick scene being just a constant barrage of words about the absurdity of the situation is starting to make sense.
Back to High On Life’srecent show featured an underwhelming demo from Gamescom. However, footage from the game has started to circulate online. It includes a sequence in which an alien child begins berating Roiland’s character and Roiland’s live gun character freaking out because a kid can’t be shot in a game. Who would think that High On Life could allow you to do this? Roiland’s character then repeats how crazy and wild it is that you did this, and I wonder what is supposed to be funny.
This dialogue is quite clear. The shock is tied entirely to a video game letting you do something that most games don’t allow you to do. Squanch Games is instead commenting on how games often make it difficult for players to interact directly with children in ways that a developer wouldn’t want to. Cyberpunk 2077 eliminates all children from Night City. Many games don’t allow players to shoot guns if facing a child character.
However, even in this context, I don’t know what joke High On Life is trying to make. It’s letting me do something that most video games won’t allow me to do. The dialogue exchange would be nothing but repeated comments about a child in front of you and Roiland’s gun not wanting you to shoot them. You can, and everyone keeps on talking about how it happened. It doesn’t have any wit or dramatic effect. It just happens, and everyone will keep repeating it. It’s not funny. It’s just a loud replay of past events.
The player will be able to meet the mother of the child, who claims that he is 30 years old (though she says that’s still adolescence for the alien species). However, even with this context, I still don’t know what the joke is in the end. Although we haven’t seen much of the game, I can’t make any general statements about its quality. However, it has yet to make me laugh. This is just one moment when I feel that what the game thinks is funny is not funny to me.
