One of the best games of recent years, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015) released its version for the new generation of consoles this week. Everyone already knows Gerald de Rivia, the wizard with white hair and a mutated body who offers his services as a monster hunter in that world of magical roots with European medieval connotations that the Netflix series since 2019 has reproduced so well. And you know him because the character has jumped from one medium to another until it has permeated popular culture: from book to game and from there to series.
Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of the original books, has a cordial relationship with those responsible for the series adaptation, but he has engaged in a bloody legal battle with CD Projekt RED, the Polish studio that adapted the games, for the rights to his character. which he believes sold for little money. The transmedia ecosystem that is increasingly present in the world of video games therefore has in The Witcher one of its best and at the same time most bittersweet examples. However, the big news regarding the transfer from one world to another format is another transfer, we can say that it is rather conceptual, which also happened this week in the world of digital entertainment.
In 2013, a very special adult animated series came out of the United States: Rick and Morty. The hallmarks of the fiction soon dazzled a legion of followers. It had tough sci-fi (there are episodes that, if they were serious films, would be considered masterpieces of the genre), unbridled humor, South Park-worthy swear language, and an iconoclasm that allowed it to conquer anyone from religion Openly inciting religion to politicians from all spectrums. In addition, the series created by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland shaped the vocal qualities of the latter unmistakably: he gave a voice to both the two protagonists (the adolescent Morty and his great, alcoholic and nihilist grandfather Rick) as well as many other sporadic characters.
A fight in High on Life armed with a talking knife and pistol.
On Tuesday, High on Life (something like Druged Alive) was launched, a game that manages to be completely immersed in the essence of Roiland. A first-person shooter as colorful as plastic, the game puts us in the shoes of a teenager escaping an alien invasion (the aliens want to use humans as a substance to get high on; that approach says it all) and it is A brain dead, brutal, hilarious experience from start to finish. It’s not a Rick and Morty game and obviously not for all audiences (in the first scene we already see cocaine use, there are hilariously gruesome deaths and the word “fuck” is so ubiquitous as in this iconic scene from The Wire), but for those who like Roiland’s humor it’s a must-read.
Beyond its approach, High on Life is a wonderful example of how a whole form of humor that is intrinsic to and intrinsic to a comedian can be brought to the digital world. What makes you think that? The idea is as simple as it is ingenious: the weapons we carry are actually other aliens who (sort of) shoot from behind and whose faces look at us, asking questions, insulting, giving hints and interacting with the rest of the characters. . Regardless of whether you like the game or not, you have to recognize the audacity with which the developers (Squanch Games, founded by Roiland himself) have injected its essence into the game, as if it were the very human drug that evil aliens themselves inject yourself. . . It is possible to crystallize a personality in a game. And it can be done well. Hopefully the example will spread and more creators will be encouraged to explore the possibilities of the medium when it comes to absorbing essence. Perhaps the Chiquito de la Calzada humor-drenched game about an alien invasion where the enemies say “Jarl” isn’t so far off.
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