This one is kind of like Bukowski the RPG, if you were to transform Factotum (1975) into a video game. LISA: Definitive Edition has the first outing plus DLC, making it the complete bundle.
It's a cut back, funny, oddball mix of chaos and battling in a post-apocalyptic setting. Despite its dark and often crass humour, it also packs a quite emotional bunch with its beer bottles and other guff. Huzzah!
LISA the Painful and Joyful in One Malicious RPG Bundle
LISA: The Painful launched in 2014 and is the work of indie team Dingaling Productions in Colorado. LISA: The Joyful launched in 2015 and is an expansion on the first outing.
A sequel, if you will, but not in the traditional sense. But you can get them both in the Definitive Edition set, which launched in July 2023 on all consoles and PC.
Starting off with Painful, you take control of Brad Armstrong. What follows here is basically the miserable, downbeat, often very amusing story of a broken man in a post-apocalyptic landscape.
At the start of the game we learn Brad was abused as a child, as was the eponymous Lisa, and both enter into a relentless journey across Olathe (a total, desert wasteland) on a mission or moral failure.
We don't want to give too much away about the full scope of the narrative. It's best to go in blind and be prepared, as this games hates you. Be aware of that! And you'll be punished for daring to play it.
Anyway, it's an RPG so that means a slow and methodical plot development. Here's how it all looks (the clip contains some spoilers, yo).
As you play through, you'll discover some disturbed characters and deformed individuals.
Then you get the increasingly mad stuff, such as when Brad gets his hands on a bulldozer and decides to wreak his revenge on the malingering gits across the wasteland.
There's lots of stuff like that. With its dark humour and distinct, if odd, visual style the game is certainly not for everyone. At its bleak heart, this is an old-school SNES like RPG.
Just a very, very strange one crammed with buckets of dark humour.
There's 11 hours or so of gameplay here, during which time the plot does take players to uncomfortable places. This is a game for adults, make no mistake.
The point of the story is to highlight abuse begets abuse.
As funny as LISA can be, you can see in it that deadbeat quality Bukowski had in his writing. He viewed himself as deplorable and moribund—worthless. And across LISA's landscape of abuse and despair you'll find similar, increasingly warped themes.
In many respects, this title set the foundations for the mighty Disco Elysium (2019). A landmark indie game with some truly exceptional writing.
And the writing in LISA is often also excellent. The story is rich, funny, and moving. Disturbing, ultimately, as it's a very serious game behind all the silly lunacy. It offers up a macabre gallows humour to cover its bleak message masked by some often quite appealing animation.
Not for the faint of heart. Wade into this if you dare for laughs, giggles, and growing concerns.
LISA: The Painful's Most Excellent Soundtrack
LISA's suitably strange score was provided by Widdly 2 Diddly. It's also the name of a minor character in the game, but is the musical alias the game's creator Austin Jorgensen.
A lot of the music are berserk pieces to add to the weird world you take part in.
But for the more melodic moments, they kind of add a weird homely quality to the experience. As with Summer Love above, which has abrupt crashing and banging in it. Or Beehive with its normal structure.
The music is a curious affair, if very good at its best, to complement what's a very, very strange video game indeed.
Thinking about it, LISA is the Ren & Stimpy Show of video games. It's got all those gross-out qualities alongside a lingering sense of mentally disturbed abuse.
Full plaudits to Dingaling Productions for creating such a challenging title. 2o14 was when indie games were just emerging as a force to be reckoned with. This is one of those titles that helped set new benchmarks.
No comments:
Post a Comment