Game 29: Leisure Suit Larry III - Reality Bites

Larry Laffer Journal Entry 5: “I should have known better! Am I really that stupid that I thought the gorgeous Patti would really be in love with me?! She showed so much interest, especially after I spent so long working on my new body, and we spent such an amazing time together in her penthouse suite. As usual though, it all turned out to be a lie, and she was thinking of another man the whole time. I don’t know who this Arnold is, but I hope he realises how lucky he is. Oh well...I’ve had it with women! It always ends in pain and embarrassment! I’m going to spend some time away from the world. I don’t even care where I end up. As long as it’s far from women...particularly Patti!!!”

Ditto Bambi...ditto!

One of the biggest risks I face while writing this blog is making a fool of myself in front of hundreds of readers. Thankfully, this doesn’t bother me too much. In fact, I think all adventure gamers have moments where they miss something right in front of their face or make a really bad decision, so if anything I’d like to think these instances are bonding experiences rather than distancing ones. I actually had the choice of whether or not to tell you all about my locker 69 troubles, since I’d already figured out where I’d gone wrong before I wrote the post, but not to do so would have felt very disingenuous. The fact is that I was completely on track while trying to find the combination to the locker. I just screwed up! The business names on the back of Suzi Cheatem’s Fat City membership card did indeed represent page numbers in the tourist manual. I was correct that Bippi’s Island Liquors was 10 and Dewey, Cheatem & Howe was 16, but I’d failed to see that there was an ad for Nontoonyt Community Centre on page 9. This was a big facepalm moment for me, as I’d wasted quite a bit of time wandering around and trying random combinations based on ridiculous theories.

About bloody time too!

So the code to the locker ended up being 10-9-16, and inside was a “photo of a scantily-clad Tom Selleck, some spray deodorant, and a set of woman’s sweats.” (100 points) I put on the sweats in preparation to enter the gym (2 points) and made my way over to the second exit from the locker room. I’d inadvertently found out while researching Larry III that there was a pretty significant technical issue that arises when trying to get through the gym scene on modern computers. The problem occurs because Al Lowe wrote what he thought was a pretty clever piece of code that makes the number of repetitions Larry needs to do on each exercise directly proportional to the clock frequency of the computer’s processor. On a 16 MHz 386, this resulted in 21 repetitions on each of the four exercises. On a Pentium 233, each exercise had to be repeated 510 times! On my Alienware laptop…well, someone else would have to do the math. I really hoped that playing the game in SCUMMVM was going to avoid the problem.

A few months in the gym and these women won't be able to refuse me

It did! I hopped onto the pull up equipment and used the arrow keys to lift and lower myself. Interestingly I was able to view myself doing this on the equipment at normal size, as well as a close up version of the action in the upper screen.  I repeated the movement until I received a message saying “Congratulations! You’ve done 12 pull ups.” I then completed 12 bench presses, 12 bar pulls and 12 leg raises, after which I was told “Boy, oh boy! This exercise stuff really works! Why, you look and feel like a new man!” Before my very eyes my body began to bulge all over the place, at first making me appear like some mutant hunchback, before eventually covering my frame with huge muscles. Just a few of these exercises and I could now compete with Mr Universe! Of course this new physique was too good to be true and I soon sprang a leak and shrank back to a more normal, albeit toned, size. (100 points)

Or maybe just a few minutes!!!

“Oh, well. Who would want to be that pumped up anyway? At least you’re no longer overweight; why, just take a look at yourself. That gut of yours is gone and just look at those muscles! What a hunk!!” I stood Larry sideways and admired his new fitter physique. Surely Bambi and Patti wouldn’t be able to resist me now! I walked back to the locker, took off the sweats, covered myself with a towel, and then made my way to the showers. I’d expected a similar scene to the Police Quest showers, where any sign of nudity was hidden by walls. I should have known better! The shower screen was viewed from below the tiles, meaning I was forced to look up at Larry’s butt crack and...other bits...while moving him into the necessary parts of the room. I turned on the water and then used the soap on a rope that I’d been carrying around for a while. I’d noticed earlier that the soap had a circular hole in the centre, so it wasn’t surprising when Larry washed himself very well indeed. “Some parts longer than others!” (60 points)

Aaaaggghhhh my eyes!!!!!!

All cleaned up, I made my way back to the locker and used the deodorant (49 points), and then put my leisure suit back on. Since Bambi was just next door, I decided she would be my next conquest. This time when I offered to help her make her video, Larry said: “Bambi! I’ve got it! I know just the angle that will sell that video of yours! Sex!” (99 points) Bambi thought this was a brilliant idea, realising that nothing would sell aerobics like sex. I asked her whether she could make sex positions interesting enough for the video, after which she showed me numerous raunchy moves onstage. By this stage Bambi was getting really horny and demanded we stop rehearsing and get down to “show time”! She led me out of the studio and into the tanning room. (3 points) Apparently the tanning bed had been broken since the late eighties (wasn’t this game made in the late eighties?), so no-one would disturb us there.

You really don't need to convince me Bambi. Can we go now!

I moved over to the tanning bed to “audition” for a role in Bambi’s video. We got straight to it, with Larry once again keeping his suit on for all the action. A few thrusts in and something rather dramatic occurred. The lid of the tanning machine came crashing down on us and began heating up! After a few humorous innuendos from both Bambi and Larry, such as “I can’t get it up!” and “that’s your problem Larry, I’d just like to raise the lid of this tanning booth!”, Bambi slipped out of the machine and left me to ponder why it’s so difficult to get an even tan! So once again Larry’s seemingly successful attempts at getting laid had been thwarted by unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances. The quest for satisfaction would have to continue, and I had a pretty good feeling that my quest would be fulfilled just around the corner. It was time to go see Patti again!

Final Destination 3: The Adventure Game

With my new physique, I gave Patti a freshly made lei once again. This time she responded with “Oh Larry, thank you! You’re such a charmer! I’m ready. What do you want to do?” (100 points) All I could think to say was “ask about room”, to which she said “Yes, Larry, I do live in the penthouse here.” (100 points) After further questioning she said “It’s getting late, I’m ready to quit for the night, and you’re looking better all the time. Here, Larry, take the key to my suite. I’ll slip out the back way and use the service elevator. Just wait a few minutes before you come upstairs, as I’d like to slip into something more comfortable…” (25 points)  Patti then made a real point of reminding me that she refuses “to make love to a man without something to drink first!” I didn’t have any form of alcohol in my inventory, and couldn’t think of anywhere specific that I might be able to get some. Time to put the thinking cap on!

Quite possibly the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me!

The first thing I tried to do, simply because it was on the way out of the casino, was to ask the obnoxious man at the desk in the hotel about wine. I thought maybe I could order some from the hotel. He wasn’t able to assist, so I looked at my map to see if any locations popped out as potentials. I’d not yet been able to enter Chip ‘n’ Dales. Perhaps it would now be open and I could find some wine in there? Well the answer was no, as it was still locked with a “CLOSED” sign on the door. My next thought was that there might have been a bottle on one of the tables in The Comedy Hut, and since it was very close to Chip ‘n’ Dales, I wandered over to have a look. Yes, there was a bottle right in the middle of the table I sat at originally! I walked over to it and picked it up! Excellent! (15 points)

Well it was a lot easier to get than in Indiana Jones

Before I took the wine back to Patti, I wondered what else I might have missed in The Comedy Hut. I really hadn’t given it much attention during my mapping period of the game, but I’d not had any need to come back until now. Ever since my first visit, I’d wondered what would happen if I managed to let Paul Paul go through his entire comedy routine. I decided to find out, but after a few minutes of jokes, I started to wonder whether it would ever end. For the first time in Larry III, I turned to game speed up to max and watched as he flew through joke after joke after joke at high speed. Finally, he stopped, and said “and now, because you’ve been so patient, I’d like to do my famous impersonation of a duck!” He then did the best impersonation of a duck imaginable (i.e. he changed into a duck) for a short amount of time and then disappeared off stage. (100 points)

Now that's what I call talent!

I then turned my attention to the rest of the room, looking at each of the tables and people in turn. When I came to the lower left table, I received the following description. “Sitting at this table are Bill Skirvin and Al Lowe, deep in an esoteric discussion about 3-D animated graphic adventure game design.” I was then given an opportunity to say something, so I simply typed “Hi Al”. Al then remarked: “Hey! I’ve got an idea. How about if you and I sit in a comedy club and we make Larry walk up to us and say something like, “Hi Al”” Bill responded with ““Hi Al”, eh? Are you crazy? No way. That’s so lame! Larry would never say that!” Al seemed to agree: “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. This is not a good idea. Let’s get out of here. “Hi Al” Really!!” The two game designers then disappeared! (5 points) I’m fairly used to Sierra games referencing each other and even the designers behind them, but this…this was awesome! Very funny indeed!

These guys really had fun making these games, which I can't imagine happens all that often these days.

Right, it was time to go to Patti’s penthouse! I hopped into the hotel lift that had appeared unusable to me previously. I’d been dreading this part due to my failed attempts at choosing a floor, but typing “go to penthouse” was all I needed to do now that I had the key that Patti gave me. (4 points) When the lift finally reached the top floor, I stepped out into Patti’s amazing pad, taking in her reclining form on the circular bed. I typed “pour wine” and Larry placed the bottle on the silver tray alongside two empty glasses. (500 points!) I then witnessed a very long sequence that held much banter between the two characters, with Larry seductively sliding onto the bed and pouring the wine. The animation is rather smooth and impressive during this scene, suggesting great effort was made to give this climactic scene extra resonance. We drank…and then…

When!

…we made love! Unlike the other humorous sex scenes in the game, this one wasn’t actually shown on screen. After moving in for some kissing action, the screen went black, and the only sign that anything was going on at all was numerous “ooohhhsss” and “aaaahhhhs” and lines such as “Oh yes, THAT! Yes, THAT! Please, more of that!!” Eventually I was shown a screen of Patti in apparent ecstasy, with two temperature gauges representing the lovers peaking climaxes. With a final united “YES!”, Larry and Patti collapsed to the bed and panted, both of them pondering how the other was the lover they’d always wanted. While all this romantic stuff was going on, Al still managed to get a few cracking lines in. Larry thinking: “The woman of my dreams…” Patti thinking: “The man of my dreams…” Both thinking: “I’m in love!” “Larry thinking: There’ll never be another woman for me!” Patti thinking: “How I wish I still smoked!” That one had me laughing out loud!

Or hot for that matter! Do you have air con?!

However, as is usually the case, not everything goes Larry’s way! As Patti is drifting off to sleep, she thinks about her life, promising herself that “Tomorrow I must call my boy friend and tell him I’m breaking off our relationship for good. Sorry, Arnold.” She then murmured Arnolds name as she lost consciousness, just loud enough for Larry to hear. This causes Larry to doubt everything that has just happened, believing that Patti has been thinking of another man all along. He gets up, gets dressed, and departs the room, “going where no woman will ever frustrate me again!” When Patti wakes up, she realises Larry has gone, and after finding him entering the bamboo forest through her telescope, decides to set off in pursuit. This means that I now take control of Patti and go in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals! I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

I knew it! That bamboo section wasn't for nothing!

Session Time: 1 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 4 hours 30 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: I've written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!