Think about E.T. snorted your dad off an area bathroom. You’d be mad, however there wouldn’t be something you might do about it. Until you occurred to have an arsenal of highly effective alien weapons and a few tricked-out energy armour. That is the story of you, an unassuming child who simply occurs to like video video games, and the way Earth getting taken over by an enormous interstellar drug cartel seems to be the making of you.
The occasions of Excessive on Life begin on the outbreak of alien invasion on a seemingly regular day in sleepy suburbia. Your dad and mom are out of city, your cokehead sister, Lizzie, needs to throw a wild celebration, and all you wish to do is lose your self in a Legally Distinct first individual shooter. Relatable.
Out of nowhere arrives the G3 Cartel, led by a disgusting slimy slug man referred to as Garmantuous; a blob of distorted flesh extra hideous than Jabba the Hutt and twice as imply. He’s right here as a result of, sadly, human beings are a really potent leisure drug. In a spot of obscenely dangerous luck, evolutionarily talking, we simply so occur to be like catnip to the assorted species that make up galactic civilisation. So the G3 cartel is right here to enslave us, stick us all in jars, and promote us on avenue corners, exhibiting completely no regard for our rights as sentient beings. They even homicide beloved Hollywood stars Jack Black and Susan Sarandon!
Luckily, an early probability encounter with ideas the scales ever so barely again in humanity’s favour. You meet Kenny, a sentient gun from the planet Gatlus. The Gatlians are proud race of residing weapons who’re additionally enslaved by the cartel, subjected to a brutal bioengineered plague. Any survivors are pressganged into forming the majority of the cartel’s deadly arsenal.
You understand, I’m beginning to suppose these guys aren’t very good.
Kenny seems to be an affable younger gun with an axe to grind in opposition to the cartel and a plan for you each to get even. Together with his assist, you escape the ravaging of Earth by warping your complete home to Blim Metropolis, an alien metropolis filled with gleaming towers, unbelievable expertise, and, properly… pawn retailers, prison gangs, filthy slums, and gobby delinquents. It’s a metropolis in spite of everything. They’re all Birmingham or Detroit or no matter once you get right down to it.
So right here’s Kenny’s plan: you change into a licensed bounty hunter and destroy the G3 cartel’s complete sordid operation by systematically murdering all of its prime brass… which entails chaotically murdering a lot of its backside brass. All of which is sort of not possible with out the assistance of Gene Zaroothian: a down-on-his-luck, previously well-known bounty hunter who has sooner or later resorted to promoting his personal legs for a little bit of fast money. In trade for a everlasting seat in your sofa and custody of the TV distant, he units you up with the aforementioned Tricked Out Energy Armour and the all-important Bounty-5000, an enormous alien pc that mixes the capabilities of a contract board and a Stargate. He additionally units you up along with your first mission: head to the slums, get well Gene’s knife “Knifey”, and assassinate 9-Torg, an area crime boss. And likewise 5-Torg, her cloned sister, for those who like.
Whereas not strictly talking a part of the G3 Cartel, 9-Torg’s gang do enterprise with them as drug runners and so it feels completely morally constant to, y’know, homicide all of them. With Knifey recovered and the related abilities of knife crime and grappling unlocked, your campaign to save lots of humanity from the scum of the universe begins in earnest.
Goal 1: Krubis
Your first goal is Krubis, the massive cheese of G3’s mining operations on the planet Zephyr Paradise, with a thick New Jersey accent and drills for palms.
“Mining operation?”, you say? “I assumed this was a drug cartel? What may they probably be mining for?”
Medicine. They’re mining medicine. Particularly, a residing drug referred to as Furgles, one other sentient race having fun with the doubtful honour of by some means having developed to present different aliens a very good excessive when snorted. They have a tendency to dwell underground in caves, therefore all of the mining. Furgles share the planet with the Moplets, a race of Despair Bears with scrotums for faces who’ve been brutally enslaved by Krubis as a way to maintain the mines operating.
Krubis, nonetheless, has an issue. With the invention of people, who’ve confirmed a way more potent narcotic, the demand for Furgles is about to break down. He and his product is now quick slipping out of favour with Garmantuous, which means his place inside the G3 Cartel rests on very shakey floor. Which is what occurs once you dig too many tunnels.
Quickly sufficient, nonetheless, that’s the least of his issues, since you kill him and take his gun, Gus, the JB Smoove voiced frog-faced shotgun with a vacuum operate who can shoot massive sawblades that you should use as platforms. He’s additionally the one Gatlian who has arms, which is ironic for a race of arms. You understand, armaments. Ah, overlook it.
In the meantime, again house, whereas Lizzie has been stepping into the alien courting scene, Gene has been making himself a bit too comfy on the sofa, and so you discover the 2 at one another’s throats.
Goal 2: Douglas
The second G3 goal is Douglas, the cartel’s head of coaching. And likewise torture. And whereas some stage of evil is required to work in recruitment, Douglas’ unrelenting cruelty and hedonism makes him extraordinarily dangerous at his job, usually making new recruits combat one another to the loss of life regardless of the G3’s existential staffing issues. This, in fact, means he’s quick slipping out of favour with Garmantuous, which appears to be a operating theme right here. How can such a chaotic and badly managed organisation be the dominant prison conspiracy within the galaxy? It’s virtually like another person is actually pulling the strings right here…
Douglas is a small, susceptible octopus creature who’s obsessive about setting pointless, arduous coaching duties. In disguise as Dr. Joopy, he virtually convinces you to steer him again to the facility armour he’s by chance locked himself out of whereas on a bender, however the ruse is uncovered by Gus, and so you possibly can simply shoot him as a substitute of enjoying his silly video games. Or not. Both means you find yourself combating his swimsuit, win, and purchase a brand new Gatlian companion: Sweezy, an obnoxious needler with a nifty time bubble alt hearth which can be utilized to get into air ducts.
Goal 3: Physician Giblets
Clugg Nuggmin, Blim Metropolis’s Justice of the Peace, summons you to his workplace to congratulate you in your marketing campaign in opposition to the drug commerce, and affords his help in rescuing the human race by constructing a secure haven in your individuals and a supplying you with a tool to teleport any people you discover instantly there. Setting apart for now the excessive chance of this man having a nefarious agenda, you proceed to the following assassination mission… stopping briefly to unravel one other home between Gene, Lizzie, and her dipshit boyfriend, Tweeg.
The subsequent goal? Physician Giblets, the cartel’s deranged warp scientist, who’s presently hiding out on Zephyr Paradise. Present intel on Dr. Giblets says he’s gone into hiding after murdering all of his personal males, and is in possession of a strong Gatlian. Upon discovering his secret base, nonetheless, you discover solely a Busted Gatlian, which is totally damaged and inoperable after being experimented on. Earlier than you possibly can deal righteous revenge on his abuser, although, Giblets by chance journeys over and… dies. Removed from saving you the hassle of a boss combat, although, this results in one of many hardest battles within the sport within the type of Dr. Giblets’ posthumous revenge.
Giblets finally ends up totally handled, and the Busted Gatlian is delivered again to Gene to see if something might be performed for them. However Giblets wasn’t the one G3 boss on Zephyr Paradise performing horrific medical experiments.
Goal 4: The Skrendel Brothers
Subsequent on the hit listing: the Skrendel Brothers, overseers of Skrendel Labs, an enormous drug facility the place the cartel are experimenting on people as a way to improve their efficiency. On the best way there you rescue one other Gatlian, Creature, and study of the nasty experiments which have turned him right into a gun that’s completely pregnant, able to capturing his personal offspring as projectiles. What’s it with these guys and horrific medical experiments?
The Skrendel Bros are a compound being of triplets who mix into an extremely kind throughout your remaining battle with them, which they clearly lose. By now you’ve change into sufficient of a thorn within the cartel’s facet to garner the eye of Garmantuous himself, who warns you to again off, with the implication that your lengthy misplaced dad and mom can be harmed for those who don’t. Nevertheless, it really seems that Garmantuous has Hollywood’s beloved Jack Black and Susan Sarandon, not your dad and mom, in one of many sport’s funniest twists and long-form gags. Which I fully spoiled within the intro to this recap. Hey, look, for those who had been bothered about spoilers, you wouldn’t be studying a recap, proper?
Within the meantime, it seems that the busted Gatlian is a former resistance chief by the title of Lezduit, who’s now a shadow of his former self as a result of mistreatment, however remains to be a massively highly effective firearm. Nevertheless, evidently he has a troubled previous with Kenny…
Blim Metropolis Invasion
It wouldn’t be a online game with out a perilous third act the place you just about lose all the pieces. Firstly, Lizzie has gone lacking, and so that you head to House Applebees within the slums the place her boyfriend, Tweeg, works as a cook dinner. That’s proper, there’s a House Applebees, in one of many funniest and impossible items of product placement ever featured in video video games. This may be like having a licensed OMEGA watch in a Bond sport that you simply solely ever see coated in shit.
At Applebees, Kenny takes one of many sport’s uncommon quiet moments to elucidate his unwitting half within the downfall of the Gatlian race, confessing that he turned the private firearm of a G3 smuggler and ended up, by way of cowardice and incompetence, main the Cartel instantly again to his house planet, triggering a battle which his individuals misplaced as a result of a genetically engineered illness that turned most of them catatonic. Feeling the an enormous pressure from this guilt, Kenny vows to save lots of humanity to atone for the genocide of his individuals. Which is all fairly heavy stuff for a daft Rick and Morty first-person shooter, however the pathos is recurrently interrupted by an Applebees waiter simply to maintain issues as gentle as doable. That is, surely, the very best bit within the sport.
Transferring on, it seems Tweeg is a G3 agent tasked with infiltrating your property by romancing Lizzie and gaining her belief. He’s seen kidnapping her in his house RV and fleeing Blim Metropolis, however earlier than you possibly can chase, the place is overrun with Cartel, forcing a hasty escape involving as soon as once more warping your home to a brand new location. This time, you arrive on the poisonous ruins of Gatlus, the house planet of the Gatlians.
Lizzie’s tremendous, by the best way.
Goal 5: Nipulon
The penultimate boss is Nipulon: Garmantuous’s proper hand man and the G3’s chief of buyer relations. He runs an notorious drug den and is, opposite to the knowledge of most high-level operatives within the unlawful drug commerce, a fan of his personal merchandise.
And, in fact, like Batman’s Scarecrow or a drained guardian with entry to kid-grade Tylenol, Nipulon is expert in weaponising medicine. This results in one of many trippiest boss fights in fashionable gaming, wherein we study that, regardless of the percentages, any problem might be overcome with the facility of teamwork. And that dealing with firearms whereas intoxicated can generally result in a constructive end result. Truly, you understand what, I don’t suppose there’s a ethical to this story, it’s only a bunch of stuff that occurs.
End the Battle
After dispatching Nipulon, Gene manages to save lots of the highly effective Gatlian Lezduit from oblivion: with no extra weapons to gather and no extra upgrades to buy, the one factor left to do is return to Earth and kill Garmantuous, completely ending the tyranny of the G3 Cartel as soon as and for all and saving the human race from the ignoble destiny of changing into ecstasy for ALF.
Even the firepower of Lezduit gained’t fairly be sufficient to take down Gamantuous, nonetheless. The one technique to kill this crime lord, surmises Gene, is to ram a bomb up his bottom. And so, on the climax of a protracted Bullet Hell battle, with an incapacitated Garmantuous exhibiting his complete ass metaphorically and actually, the butt bomb enema fails to blow up. The distant detonator is defective.
Sure, the sport’s punchline requires you to sacrifice one among your newfound associates by pushing them up the villain’s anus. A becoming finish for the galaxy’s greatest asshole, for certain. The one query is: who to sacrifice?
Essentially the most prudent alternative is Kenny, given how this noble sacrifice completes his redemption arc, however it doesn’t actually matter as a result of your alternative is instantly undermined when it seems that whichever gun you forged into the void instantly comes again after surviving the ensuing explosion.
That’s proper: Oh my god, they don’t kill Kenny. Besides they may as properly have performed, as a result of when the Excessive on Knife DLC rolls round his character will get unceremoniously written out with a little bit of exposition, for causes which can be past the remit of this recap.
By the way, the key revelations from the DLC are: Knifey just isn’t a sort of melee Gatlian however a local of the planet Australia 2, hailing from a race of pacifist knives who can’t stand him. And likewise that eliminating the dysfunctional G3 Cartel doesn’t really make humanity any safer from the intergalactic drug commerce, however we already figured that out from the key ending of the bottom sport, wherein the massive villainous mastermind behind all of it is revealed to be Dr. Gurgula. He is discovered within the bowels of the Human Haven arrange by Justice of the Peace Clugg, ostensibly that can assist you save your individuals however really to recapture them and supply human topics to Dr. Gurgula for much more horrible experiments. The sport is fairly unequivocal that this reveal is a tease for the sequel, wherein you, your sister, Gene, and no less than among the returning Gatlians are fugitives on the run from galactic authorities.
And that’s the complete story of Excessive on Life, or no less than the stuff you really must know earlier than you play Excessive on Life 2.