If you want better frame rate stability
Choose Ghost of Yōtei. It scores 5.0 vs 1.8 for frame rate stability, with a 4.4 overall score.
High on Life 2 Review
Bottom Line
Choose it for fast skateboarding, inventive missions, sharp voice work, and irreverent comedy. Skip it if technical instability, uneven gunplay, or relentless crude humor will outweigh those strengths.
Best for
Best for players who enjoy crude sci-fi comedy, creative single-player FPS campaigns, and movement-heavy exploration, especially fans of the first game.
Not for
Players who want polished shooter feedback, consistently stable performance, restrained dialogue, or family-friendly humor should skip it.
Verdict
High on Life 2 is a more confident sequel built around a genuinely transformative skateboard, creative mission detours, memorable bosses, and a talking-gun cast that many reviewers found funnier and better written than before. Its best moments are fast, strange, and unusually playful, with exploration and traversal feeding into upgrades and side content. The tradeoff is a shaky foundation: reports of softlocks, crashes, stutters, poor image quality, and inconsistent controls are common, while gunplay still divides opinion because some weapons lack impact and fights can become hard to read. The story is often tighter and more character-driven, but not every reveal or joke lands. It is easiest to recommend to players who already enjoy the series’ crude humor and can tolerate technical roughness.
Feature Scorecards
Summary
77 reviewed features-
Very positive 4.5-5.012 (16%)
-
Positive 3.5-4.426 (34%)
-
Neutral 2.5-3.421 (27%)
-
Negative 1.5-2.415 (19%)
-
Very negative below 1.53 (4%)
Pros
-
Most reviewers still find plenty of fun in the skating, strange set pieces, colorful weapons, and jokes, even when technical flaws or repetitive combat intrude.
-
Skateboarding is the standout improvement: fast, fluid, and satisfying in open spaces. Some reviewers still hit jank, sluggish speed, or clumsy behavior in tighter areas.
-
The interactive opening montage is widely praised as a funny, efficient way to recap events while teaching the basics and getting players into the action quickly.
-
The sequel’s best ideas are boldly inventive, especially skateboarding, menu-breaking bosses, and one-off mission mechanics, even if the core formula remains familiar.
-
Reviewers repeatedly praise how missions change structure, tone, and mechanics, with fewer repeated scenarios than the original.
-
The talking guns and first-person weapon work earn strong praise for expressive, polished animation that gives the arsenal personality.
Cons
-
Bugs are the most persistent complaint, including softlocks, broken triggers, missing objects, clipping, dialogue failures, and progression blockers.
-
Busy effects, small text, and uneven brightness can make fights or interface information hard to read. A few settings help, but clarity remains inconsistent.
-
Frame-rate behavior varies dramatically by platform and build, from stable high-refresh play to severe drops, stutter, freezes, and near-slideshow moments.
-
This is not family-friendly comedy: vulgar, sexual, gross, violent, and foul-mouthed material is central to the experience.
-
Optimization is a major weakness on several systems, with demanding hardware requirements and inconsistent performance. Some patches and configurations show meaningful improvement.
-
Crash frequency varies by platform and build, from isolated incidents to repeated hard exits. Several reviewers still encountered crashes after patches.
Compared With Category Average
Compared with other Video Games, this product is above average in monetization fairness, grind level, tutorial quality, near average in boss design, weapon balance, below average in polish, frame rate stability, load times.
Comparison summary
77 compared features-
Above average 0.4+ pts higher16 (21%)
-
Same as average within 0.3 pts20 (26%)
-
Below average 0.4+ pts lower41 (53%)
Largest category differences
| Attribute | This product | Category average | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| polish | 1.3 | 3.8 | -2.5 |
| frame rate stability | 1.8 | 3.9 | -2.1 |
| load times | 1.5 | 3.9 | -2.4 |
| performance optimization | 1.8 | 3.9 | -2.1 |
| soundtrack quality | 2.2 | 4.3 | -2.1 |
| family friendliness | 1.4 | 3.5 | -2.1 |
| HUD clarity | 1.3 | 3.3 | -2.0 |
| bug frequency | 1.5 | 3.1 | -1.6 |
Consider This Instead
If you want better crash stability
Choose Pokémon Legends: Z-A. It scores 5.0 vs 1.8 for crash stability, with a 3.5 overall score.
If you want better HUD clarity
Choose The Rogue Prince of Persia. It scores 5.0 vs 1.3 for HUD clarity, with a 4.0 overall score.
If you want better polish
Choose Mouse: P.I. For Hire. It scores 4.7 vs 1.3 for polish, with a 4.0 overall score.
Compared in Reviews
Products reviewers directly compared with this model, grouped into quick takeaways.
High on Life
- Worse: humor This reviewer found the sequel funnier than the original.
- Older model: overall sequel quality and humor The sequel is described as bigger, funnier, and more confident than the original.
FAQ
Is the skateboard a meaningful improvement?
Yes. Movement is one of the most consistently praised changes, making traversal faster and more satisfying, though some reviewers found it clunky or inconsistent in tight spaces.
Is the gunplay better than before?
Opinions are mixed. Some reviewers found combat tighter and more responsive, while others still described it as shallow, chaotic, or lacking audiovisual impact.
Are technical problems common?
Yes. Many reviewers reported bugs, softlocks, crashes, stutters, frame-rate drops, or broken scripting, although a few had smoother experiences and some patches improved performance.
Is the humor still crude?
Very much so. Several reviewers found the writing sharper or better paced, but the vulgar, sexual, gross-out, and relentless style remains divisive.
Is the story stronger this time?
Several reviewers found it tighter, more cohesive, and more character-driven, with choices affecting the ending. Others criticized messy reveals, thin plotting, or a rushed finale.
Is it worth paying full price?
That depends on your tolerance for technical roughness and how much side content you value. Several reviewers recommended Game Pass or waiting for a sale, while others still considered the campaign worth playing.
Sample Expert Reviews We Analyzed
These are a few of the reviews included in our analysis.
Video Reviews
YouTube - QuickSwitch
- Review score
- 2.3
Article Reviews
coedee.com
Cut Through the Noise. Pick What Works.
- Review score
- 3.6
gaminginstincts.com
High on Life 2 delivers hilarious writing and a unique universe, but performance issues hold it back. Read our final review here!
- Review score
- 3.7
gamecritix.co.uk
High On Life 2 is exactly what a sequel should be. It respects the original's identity while boldly improving its weakest ideas, resulting in...
- Review score
- 4.4
psxextreme.com
Squanch Games has done it again, offering a fun experience serving as a vehicle to set up punch lines and wacky antics.
- Review score
- 3.1
techstomper.com
High on Life 2 feels like a sequel that understands what worked and tries to fix what didn’t - louder, bigger and mechanically stronger
- Review score
- 2.9
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