I Love Lisa

Who is Lisa?

Lisa is my favorite member of the K-pop girl group BLACKPINK.

Wait no.

I don’t listen to K-pop.

That would betray my already fragile masculinity.

I listen to rock n’ roll and heavy metal and rap.

Yeah, I’m a manly man.

That’s right.

And Lisa is the name of my favorite videogame.

Which is a man’s game.

For men.

Did I say that yet?

Lisa is a game about men.

Don’t get it twisted.

Ok I lied.

Lisa is more than just a game about men.

But without admitting my infatuation with the Korean rapper of the same name, I’m going to tell you why I love Lisa.

The videogame.

K?

K.

Lisa is a post-apocalyptic role-playing video game developed and published by indie game studio LoveBrad Games (formerly known as Dingaling Productions). The critically acclaimed soundtrack that originally attracted me to this game was made by someone called Widdly 2 Diddly.

Quite the colorful name choices.

Turns out it’s all one guy. LoveBrad Games, Dingaling Productions, and Widdly 2 Diddly are all aliases for a man named Austin Jorgensen.

Austin wrote, designed, and composed my favorite game all by himself.

Thank you, Austin.

Lisa is a trilogy. The trilogy includes Lisa: The First, Lisa: The Painful, and Lisa: The Joyful.

As with most fans of these games, my introduction to the Lisa series was through Lisa: The Painful. I tried to play Lisa: The First afterwards. Despite being an interesting backstory to the 2^nd game, the first game is hot garbage. I believe Austin was still trying things out as a game developer. The difficulty of the game is borderline impossible. The story, while informative, is overwhelmingly dark and disturbing. It lacks the comic relief that I fell in love with in the second game.

Let’s start with the second game.

In Lisa: The Painful, you control a man named Brad Armstrong. Brad is a middle-aged man with a dark and troubled past. Brad lives in a post-apocalyptic town called Olathe. The apocalyptic event in this world, ambiguously named the “Flash,” seemingly wiped out every human female in Olathe.

My previous statement, the one about this being a man’s game, seems bona fide, but that’s not why I like the game. Lisa is more than just a bunch of dudes messing around in an apocalyptic playground.

Although, that is the vibe in the beginning.    

The story of Lisa is loosely based on the dystopian novel Children of Men written by English writer Phyllis Dorothy James. Phyllis tells the story of mass infertility in a futuristic England, but instead of wiping out all females, male sperm count has plummeted to zero. Children of Men is about how English society reacts when a single strand of hope is discovered: the last fertile man.

In Lisa, the roles are reversed. Austin envisions a society without fertile women, without women altogether.

And it aint pretty.

Rival gangs run rampant with guns blazing, explosions exploding, and motorbikes doing their thing. Olathe is an endless horizon of blood and carnage. The world is horrific and perverse. And everyone is addicted to Joy, a drug that gives you superhuman capabilities and crippling withdrawals.

Brad and his friends struggle to live in this world.

One day, Brad discovers an abandoned baby girl in the desert.

This child is the last strand of hope.

This child could save humanity.

But instead of handing her over to the authorities, Brad decides to hide this child and protect her from the violent and perverse outside world. Brad decides to adopt and raise the child as his own.

He names the child Buddy.

After a wholesome montage of Buddy growing up and becoming an adolescent, Brad unfortunately relapses. Brad is addicted to Joy. Coming home from his Joy bender, he finds that Buddy is gone. He assumes she has been kidnapped. The rest of the game is Brad’s adventure trying to rescue Buddy from the grasp of violent Olathe warlords.

Spoilers!

Buddy wasn’t kidnapped.

She escaped.

While she loves Brad, Buddy felt suffocated by him and desperately wanted to explore the outside world.

While attempting to “rescue” Buddy, Brad dies.

In Lisa: The Joyful, you play as Buddy seeking revenge for the death of her father figure.

Oh, I forgot to say that Brad is a karate master and taught Buddy badass karate moves so she could defend herself if she ever needed to.

So, using Brad’s karate skills along with a katana (of course because this is basically Kill Bill), Buddy becomes this badass assassin killing all the gang leaders involved in Brad’s death.

The plot became one of the most satisfying revenge stories I’ve ever experienced.

More satisfying than the bride from Kill Bill or Arya Stark from Game of Thrones.

My desktop wallpaper is Buddy crouching on a cliff with a bloody katana.

Also, the game’s soundtrack is icing on the cake.

Oh, right. I almost forgot.

Who is Lisa?

Spoilers again.

You find out in the first game that Lisa was Brad’s younger sister who died during the Flash. Before the Flash, Lisa and Brad were heavily abused by their alcoholic father, Marty. From a young age, Brad felt the need to protect his younger sister.

Brad saw his sister in Buddy.

I don’t think I spoiled much. Just the entire 1^st and 2^nd game kinda.

But the real fun to be had is in the 3^rd game. And there are so many twists and turns.

It’s a ton of fun.

I highly recommend playing it.

I love Lisa.

Here’s the sweet wallpaper and some cool music from the game.