It’s been a long time since I’ve seriously played videogames. My taste is not in vogue and my days as a tech journalist are so far behind me there’s a memorial plaque to it somewhere with gum stuck on it. Spending time with ZA/UM’s DISCO ELYSIUM though has been like a dirty, dysfunctional fling that hurts so good it has left me begging for more.

Witten and developed by Robert Kurvitz, DISCO ELYSIUM is the sort of game where calling it a game seems to sell it short: It’s a piece of cinematic art, a graphic novel of the most noble kind where one happens to use a mouse to interact with its delightfully deranged universe.

The writing is as dark as coal tar, smart like a professor of cunning, and joyously, shamelessly hilarious – deployed to burrow deep into one’s heart like some alien psilocybin-producing parasite.

The point-and-click adventure is THE SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND at sixty years old, having become a hopeless alcoholic and ruined a few marriages. The steam-punk-ish world is fresh and intriguing, the graphic design sumptuous, and the challenge and chance mechanics superbly executed; but the poignantly rich characters and overall narrative dexterity are the things that make DISCO ELYSIUM a standout revelation. The writing is as dark as coal tar, smart like a professor of cunning, and joyously, shamelessly hilarious – deployed to burrow deep into one’s heart like some alien psilocybin-producing parasite.

You play as a detective so hardboiled he’s made of leather steeped in alcohol, and after a blackout bender that has apparently erased most of his memory, we discover he is in the midst of a grisly murder investigation, and a number of other mysteries that it’s the player’s task to solve.

It’s a damn fine mystery too, with all the twists and remixed clichés you’d expect from a brilliant genre story; one that is so well integrated into the game the old click-click search tedium that has always a drawback of games of this form is irrefutably mitigated. Indeed, the world exploration and exhaustive dialogue becomes an addiction, as almost every micro interaction has some juicy delight to it that makes it more than worthwhile to spend one’s time upon.

I am not joking though, the story is gruesome, nihilistic and adult; while at the same time incredibly sophisticated and presenting a rather astounding critical exploration of socio-political themes.

Like BREAKING BAD, DISCO ELYSIUM is capitally fucked up in ways that one cannot help but to become besotted by. It’s compelled me to write four hundred words without a fee; that’s says more than any star rating will ever tell you. Buy it now and feast upon the pain.