Game 10: Leisure Suit Larry I - Final Rating

Another game down, another PISSED rating post. I have a feeling that Leisure Suit Larry has a very good chance of topping the leaderboard, despite wishing it were a tad more challenging. Let's see if the pure enjoyment factor can overcome this weakness.

Puzzles and Solvability
As I’ve mentioned in the previous post, Leisure Suit Larry borders on being too easy, and I think there are numerous reasons why that came about. Firstly, it’s based on an interactive fiction game, and while some of the puzzles may have been challenging in a text only environment, having a graphical interface makes the solutions a lot more obvious. Secondly, I really do think that Sierra’s first foray into play testing resulted in too much hand holding. It seems to me that any frustrations that the test players experienced were “corrected” before release, with the resultant game basically telling the player what to do all the time. A good example of this is Larry’s conversation with Faith. Rather than Faith making some ambiguous comment that if thought about the right way could lead to a solution, the “narrator” of the game tells the player “perhaps some medical stimulant would help”. The up side of this hand holding is that it’s difficult to get into a dead end situation in Leisure Suit Larry. It’s certainly possible to have an unfinishable game (if you eat the apple or give an item to the wrong person), but the player is pretty much told outright that they’ve screwed up, and can therefore reload before the trouble starts. Balancing it all out…
Rating: 5

Hmmm...this is tricky. Um (scratches head)...oh I know! I can try giving her these medical stimulants!!!

Interface and Inventory

There really is nothing to say about the interface and inventory of Leisure Suit Larry that I haven’t already said in previous Sierra games. The interface is exactly the same as it is in the likes of Space Quest, with the main difference being the amount of effort the developers put into making just about every command you can think of result in something (normally pretty funny) on most screens. This makes the text parser feel better, even though it has the same strengths and weaknesses as always. The inventory is just as you would expect, so I won’t waste any more time discussing this category. It was 5 for the last few, so it’s 5 again.

Rating: 5

I find the interface to be acceptable and adequate, with the slightest hint of sufficient

Story and Setting

The story of Leisure Suit Larry is more than a little immature and juvenile, yet it’s so laugh out loud funny and entertaining that you won’t care. Who can’t be entertained playing a 38 year old loser virgin, trying his luck with numerous women of varying quality over a night of alcohol, gambling and smut? Well...feminists I guess...and perhaps fundamental zealots...and come to think of it, I don’t think my mother would really enjoy it very much, but you get my point! The 40 Year Old Virgin movie that came out a few years ago uses pretty much exactly the same formula with similar success, targeting the same male dominated market. Al Lowe clearly played Space Quest as well, as he brought across two of the features that made that game so funny, being hilarious death sequences and a mocking narrator. Larry doesn’t just fail...he fails badly, and is normally killed in extremely unfortunate circumstances (drowned by a leaking toilet, arrested for bestiality after taking the stimulants himself, having his penis bitten off after licking the hooker etc.). Even when he doesn’t die, the narrator makes sure the player knows just how useless Larry is and indirectly, how useless they are. It’s a very short and shallow story, but it’s also the most fun I’ve had since starting the blog, so it’s a 6.

Rating: 6

Just as in Space Quest, some of the best moments occur when you die

Sound and Graphics

You can’t discuss the sound in Leisure Suit Larry without talking about the theme track. Al Lowe, a jazz saxophone player, apparently came up with it in about 20 minutes, but it’s one of those classic, immediately recognisable tunes that stick in your head. I can’t say I really recall any of the music from the rest of the game, apart from the pretty awful music that accompanies Larry and Fawn’s disco dance. Overall, the sound is minimal and suffers all the same quality issues that came with mid to late eighties PC games. The graphics are also a mixed bag. Quite a few sections, such as Lefty’s Bar and the Convenient Store are based around a really eye-twinging light blue, which is made all the more obvious when the game moves to more successful darker tones, like the disco interior and the chapel exterior. Looking at all the screenshots I’ve collected, it’s not hard to see why later games, such as The Secret of Monkey Island, would use almost entirely darker colours, as it’s just simply more attractive. Last but not least, the close-ups of the girls are actually pretty good for the time. Plenty of Sierra games had already included lines such as “you see the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen”, but they were normally accompanied by grotesquely pixelated atrocities that made you question the main character’s judgement. In Larry, the hooker is suitably skanky and Fawn, Faith and Eve range from mildly pretty to downright sexy, in a two dimensional, 16 colour kind of way.

Rating: 5

The Hooker: I just couldn't make Larry go there!

Environment and Atmosphere

The world of Lost Wages (get it?) is full of seedy details. Even if you ignore the fact that a dirty bar, a brothel and a casino rule the landscape, the minor characters that Larry comes across have a consistently sordid quality. Raging alcoholics, flashing grandpas, naked men selling apples, porn-obsessed pimps, there are very few people in this town that you’d want to introduce to your mother (I bet no-one’s ever mentioned their mother twice in a Leisure Suit Larry review before!). Overall, unsurprisingly given the plot, Leisure Suit Larry’s atmosphere is all about sex! Not the sensual, loving type, but the filthy, sweaty type. It’s this naughtiness that no doubt made the game so attractive to teenage boys, who at the time were themselves struggling to rid themselves of their increasingly burdensome virginity. Al Lowe and co. really nailed it, pushing the boundaries of what could be considered appropriate in a video game at the time while remaining joyfully light-hearted and entertaining. It has to be a 7.

Rating: 7

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything, which is why it's so awesome

Dialogue and Acting

This is yet another category where Leisure Suit Larry succeeds, and probably exceeded anything that had come before it in the graphic adventure genre. The game wastes no opportunities, with a large majority of the narration and description being hilarious and highly suggestive. Spending the time to look at every item in every room doesn’t just assist in figuring out what to do in the game, the resulting descriptions are a constant source of entertainment and hilarity.  Most of the characters that Larry meets on the way have idiosyncrasies and impediments, some of which border on racist (“This no library – no leeding”), and all the slurring and ticking gives real character to Lost Wages. While the banter between Larry and his prospective lovers could be considered the first real two way conversations in the genre, they’re limited to a few lines and the player has no real options available that affect the outcome, so I can't really add points for that.

Rating: 6

The drunken, cynical priest is another comedy highlight

Well there you have it! Leisure Suit Larry takes the lead. Comparing the individual ratings to the previous leader, Space Quest, it actually has the same numbers in every category apart from Puzzles and Solvability. I think this is fair, as both games are of a very similar quality and both emphasise humour rather than intrigue, with the main difference being that Space Quest had quite a few uncommunicated dead ends. This difference means most players would have spent twice as long completing Space Quest, but this doesn’t translate to the game having twice the gameplay. I feel comfortable with this result and do feel that Leisure Suit Larry is more than just "that funny game where you have to make a virgin have sex".

Game 10: Leisure Suit Larry I - Won!

Larry Laffer Journal Entry 2: “After being so close to getting laid on numerous occasions tonight, I finally succeeded in my task. It was totally worth being...um...selective too, as the girls got progressively hotter right up to my triumph with Eve, the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen in my 38 years on the planet! Fawn ended up being a greedy little man-eater, who only married me to get to my cash. I don’t think she ever intended to have sex with me, and left me tied to the bed in the honeymoon suite, naked and broke. I moved on quickly however (after cutting myself loose) and came across the stunning Faith working on the eighth floor of the hotel. Unfortunately she lived up to her name and after I successfully turned her on with a combination of inhuman charm and a bottle of stimulants, she quickly left to give her husband the night of his life. I still had confidence that my luck was going to change, and Faith’s departure was the break I needed to get where I wanted to go. A little button at her then absent desk gave me access to the penthouse suite, where I found Eve naked in a spa, clearly eager for some action. I was only too happy to oblige, and soon found myself in her awesome pad, getting it on until the sun came up. Life couldn’t be better and I don’t plan on letting Eve out of my sight...ever! If only I didn’t get married earlier tonight..."

If the above makes it sound like I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to get Larry to do the horizontal dance, that couldn’t be further from the truth. It took me exactly forty minutes to get from the honeymoon suite with Fawn, wondering where I could find a phone to order champagne, to watching fireworks while Larry and Eve have sex in the penthouse suite. Once I found the convenience store, everything else fell into place and at no stage did I not know what to do next. The man outside the store asks for wine...giving him the wine rewards you with a pocket knife...using the phone outside the store allows you to get the champagne Fawn demands...drinking the champagne with her leads to her tying you to the bed, where you use the pocket knife...using the rope from the bed allows you to get to the pills at Lefty’s Bar...having the pills means you can seduce Faith (the game hints that a medical stimulant might help)...seducing Faith results in her leaving her desk unattended so you can gain access to the penthouse...entering the penthouse means you score with Eve. Each time I achieved one of the goals, the next goal became pretty obvious, and I went from having 78 points at the end of my last post to finishing the game on 172 points without any need to backtrack or even think really.

Actually Larry, it really, really is!

Of course all of this could only be achieved after I found the convenience store, and if you read my last post you’d know that I hadn’t yet figured out that you could ask the taxi driver for a rundown of locations that Larry can visit. Both Charles (and Ilmari, yet I didn’t decipher his hint until after I’d completed the game) hinted at this in the comments section of that post, but I can honestly say that I was planning to try asking the driver questions during my next play session (regardless, 10 points to Charles for getting in first, and 10 points to Ilmari for using the ROT13 encryption which I’d like to encourage). It did take a while to find the right question to ask the driver, as I couldn’t think of a way to discuss locations that the text parser would understand. In the end, “ask for directions” gave me the information I was looking for, and revealed that the convenience store was the only location I hadn’t yet visited. I think this is the only time I struggled with the text parser during the whole game, which is both testament to how well Al Lowe utilised it (I’m sure the beta testing would have ironed out some frustrations) and how experienced I’m getting with using it.

This is pretty much how it feels buying rubbers in real life. All of sudden everyone's looking at you!

So, where were the fifty points that I missed!? That’s by far the most points I’ve missed when completing a Sierra game for this blog, so I thought I’d peruse a walkthrough to see what I overlooked or could have done differently. I assumed beforehand that not having sex with the hooker would make up the majority of the deficiency, especially after I purchased a rubber at the convenience store which would have allowed me to do so without contracting an STD. I can now confirm that this must be the case, as the only two things I can see that I didn’t do otherwise are; calling the Sex Survey line and the Sierra hotline from the phone at the store; and using the inflatable doll that I found in Eve’s cupboard (10 points to the first person that can tell me what happens when you use the doll as I’m intrigued). I also remember that there’s a room in the Casino where a comedian stands on stage telling jokes, but I never stayed there for more than a few seconds. The walkthrough doesn’t mention it, so I assume it’s merely for entertainment value, and nothing of relevance ever happens there. Anyway, finished is finished, and I certainly won’t be going back into games trying to get full points, or I’ll never make it through the long list of games I’ve got to play.

My experience with the doll was watching it fly away after puncturing it accidentally

Leisure Suit Larry has got me thinking about what makes a great adventure game. On the one hand, there’s not a moment in the whole game that isn’t damn entertaining, with consistently hilarious descriptions and comments flying left, right and centre. The plot may be extremely shallow and unbelievable, but it’s difficult not to barrack for Larry to get lucky, and knowing what the world of women is really like (try walking uninvited into a gorgeous brunette’s penthouse, then get into her spa while she’s in their naked, and see what happens) makes it even funnier. On the other hand, it’s not very challenging, and is all over in just a few hours. The opening scenes of the game are the trickiest, as you don’t yet have any real goal and are wandering around trying to find something to do, but once you meet Fawn, there’s not much brainpower required to get to the end credits. I complained endlessly about how difficult Uninvited was, but I certainly felt a greater sense of satisfaction when I completed it than I did for this game. I think there’s a balance of greatness in adventure games, that toes the line between being too easy and too difficult, between making you think and simply entertaining you, and Leisure Suit Larry probably ventures a bit too far into the entertaining and easy categories to match the best of the genre.

One of the few puzzles in the game that required some thought

All that being said, Leisure Suit Larry was an absolute delight to play! Filled with sexual innuendos and laugh out loud humour, not to mention scoff-inducing controversial puzzle resolutions, the game put a permanent smile on my face for all three hours that it took to finish it. A few readers have mentioned that there’s a time limit in the game that kicks in if you haven’t had sex by midnight, but despite choosing to ignore the hooker at the beginning of the game, this limitation never caused me any trouble. I can only say therefore that the limit is not a game breaker, the way it was in the Déjà Vu and to a lesser degree Uninvited. I look forward to applying the PISSED rating system to the game and assume it will be up there in the vicinity of Space Quest, perhaps even sitting on top of the leader board. After all, you just can’t stop Larry from scoring!

Eve is hot and definitely worth the wait! What? Yes, I'm aware that she's not real. Huh? No, that doesn't make me creepy...does it?!

Game 10: Leisure Suit Larry I - Skanks for Nothing

Larry Laffer Journal Entry 1: “Oh yeah, I am totally going to get laid! Not only that, but this chick is seriously hot! It seems my decision to finally reveal to the world my wares is paying dividends, and now the ladies just can’t get enough of me. This rocking evening started at Lefty’s Bar, where I sank a few drinks before making my way into the..ahem…establishment next door. I distracted the pimp with some nasty porn which gave me the opportunity to shed my virginity with the local hooker. Unfortunately she was a bit skanky and I didn’t want to waste my performance when other more gorgeous women are out there waiting for me. It’s a good thing too as I seduced a blonde bombshell named Fawn at the disco about thirty minutes later. I knew she had to be mine as soon as I saw the eight other guys obsessing over her, and she was clearly unprepared for my natural charm, good looks and…well…presents. It only took a rose, a box of candy and a diamond ring and she was all over me on the dance floor! She told me she wants to make wild, passionate love to me, but only once we get married. Needless to say, we were at the chapel about two minutes later and now the beautiful Fawn is my wife! Now it’s time to...um…consummate the marriage, if only I could find some champagne…

After the painful experience that was Uninvited, the more stress-free and hysterical Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards is a fantastic change of scene. I’ve played for two and a half hours so far and have racked up 78 points out of a possible 222 without too much trouble. Before I continue, I should point out that I have played the game previously, but I must have been about 12 at the time, and didn’t get very far due to the adult nature of the puzzles. I remember very little at all, which is why I haven’t been able to rip through any of it this time around. The first thing to discuss is the age verification system that comes up every time you start the game. Al Lowe figured he would ask five randomised questions that he presumed only adults would know the answers to, in an attempt to stop children from playing what is a very adult themed game. Unfortunately, this little quiz didn’t just make it difficult for kids to run Larry all over town trying to have sex with every woman he can find, it also acted as a form of racial selection. While I did manage to pass the test on my first attempt (you can get one question wrong out of six), it wasn’t without a couple of educated guesses (I’m Australian after all). A lot of the answers would only be known by Americans, and these days you’d also need to be at least well into your thirties to be able to breeze through it. Thankfully Google makes the whole thing obsolete today and you can skip it by pressing Ctrl + X.

So let me get this straight. If I don't know the answer to this, then I'm not an adult!

With that out of the way, I began my quest to relieve the suffering Larry of his virgin condition. Right from the start, the jokes come thick and fast, and just about every item you look at results in a humorous quip, often at Larry’s expense. I can only imagine how much of the game’s humour would have gone straight over my head as a kid, as it’s mostly of a sexual nature. Given how upfront this aspect of the game is, it’s not surprising that Leisure Suit Larry caused so much controversy when it was released. In fact, I very nearly didn’t solve one of the first puzzles in the game, just because I didn’t consider that the game could possibly be that scandalous. There’s a totally smashed dude lying in the hallway of Lefty’s Bar. If you try to talk to him, he slurs out some pickup line, but is totally incapable of getting up. If you try to “help the man”, the game tells you that he is beyond help, but very thirsty. My immediate reaction was try to get some water for the poor sod, but I had no form of container to get any from the bathroom, and Lefty certainly wasn't going to serve me any. Eventually I sat down at the bar and ordered some drinks for myself, only to find that Larry put a shot of whiskey in the inventory rather than drinking it. Still not really thinking that the game could possibly reward the player for offering alcohol to a raging drunk, I typed in “give whiskey to man”. Yep, he knocked it back and gave me a TV remote control for my trouble. You gotta love the eighties!

I feel like a better person you know. Like I really helped someone in their time of need.

That TV remote allowed me to distract the pimp in the brothel next door by changing the channel to a porn station while I moved on straight past him. Upstairs was a hooker lying on the bed, waiting for Larry to get what she thinks he paid for! I never intended to make Larry have sex with her, as I recall reading somewhere that you catch an STD if you do so unprotected, but for the sake of reviewing the game properly (i.e. as a man there’s absolutely no way I could not watch it happen at least once), I made it happen. It’s testament to the genius of Al Lowe that watching a black box with the word censored written across it simulate the motions of sex is both highly suggestive and hilarious. Anyway, I left the hooker smoking a cigarette and ignoring me entirely, and restored to a prior save game, determined that the Larry I play would have a better first experience, not to mention survive to talk about it. I picked up the box of candy from her room, which would later be given to Fawn, and left by the window. It’s here that I came across the first thing that has stumped me. I can see a bottle of pills in the next window along, but I can’t see any way to reach it. Every attempt results in Larry falling to his death, so I can only imagine I’ll find something to help me retrieve it later in the game.

Censored censored censored. Censored censored!!!

I do have a question for the readers as it’s one that won’t affect my ability to get through the game (at least I don’t think it will). After picking up the rose, the ring, the candy and a hammer from Lefty’s Bar and its surroundings, the only option available to me that I could see was to holler a cab. I found nothing in any of those first few screens that suggested where my next location should be, so since I knew that Larry visits a casino at some point, I told the cab driver to take me there. I believe that was the right thing to do as not only have I won $250 on blackjack (by saving and restoring admittedly), I also found a pass to the disco, which is where I came across Fawn. Is there anyone or anything that gives you the idea of going to the casino in those first screens? I can’t imagine you’d just be expected to guess this, but I could be wrong. Or perhaps by guessing the casino I’ve skipped part of the game?! Anyway, as soon as I met Fawn at the disco, the game has moved extremely quickly. After all my lame pickup lines failed to get her to sleep with me, she hinted at how much she loves presents. I just happened to have a few nice items on me, and she willingly accepted my offer to dance once they were in her possession. The dance scene has to be seen to be believed so I won’t even try to describe the awesomeness.

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around...

I have to admit that I was very surprised at what happened next! Of course it wouldn’t make sense that Larry would reach fourth base so early in the game (if you ignore the possibility of the skanky hooker), so I kept expecting Fawn to disappear with the presents and never show up again. Instead, she met me at the chapel where we got married in a sidesplittingly routine service, and now the two of us have made our way to the honeymoon suite of the casino and are preparing to get down and dirty. Of course I’m still expecting everything to go wrong and for Larry to have to start looking elsewhere, and Fawn’s request for champagne seems to be yet another delaying tactic that will most likely lead to another. Turning on the radio in the suite results in a commercial advertising wine delivery with a number to call, but the only phone I’ve seen to this point has chewing gum stuck in the coin slot. When I finish this post, I’ll be trying to find another phone elsewhere in the game, but I have a feeling I’ll be required to take a cab to find one. Leisure Suit Larry is an immensely entertaining adventure game so far, filled with laugh inducing details and sexy banter that has me wanting more. I simply can’t concentrate on writing anymore while Fawn is waiting for Larry on that bed. It’s my duty to get the little guy the action he so obviously deserves!

Who can blame you babe. You never really stood a chance!

Game 10: Leisure Suit Larry I - Introduction

Because alliteration is funny

The tenth game that I’ll be undertaking is one that the majority (if not all) of readers would have heard of. However, before I talk about that game, it’s worth taking a trip back to 1981, back to a little game called Softporn Adventure. By this stage, Sierra had already made a name for themselves through graphic accompanied interactive fiction games such as Mystery House and The Wizard and the Princess. Someone at the company decided it might be profitable to develop an adult themed game, but a decision was made early on that it would be text based only, most likely to avoid censorship. A man named Charles Benton took on the task and the result is a pretty crappy game that follows a down on his luck party animal that’s trying to get laid. Regardless of how bad it is, Softporn Adventure sold over 25000 copies, which is pretty amazing considering only 100000 Apple II’s had been sold at the time of release. These days the game is most famous for its steamy cover that includes three naked women (the company bookkeeper, a Sierra employee’s wife, and founder Roberta Williams!) in a spa bath.

I'm sure the waiter thought the girls' invitation to join them for a spa photoshoot was going to end differently

Once Sierra’s King’s Quest series had successfully transitioned the adventure game genre from interactive fiction to animated graphics, Ken Williams decided it was time to remake Softporn Adventure using the AGI engine. Al Lowe (Black Cauldron, King’s Quest II) and Mark Crowe (Black Cauldron, Space Quest) were brought in to make the game, but after Al played through the original game in preparation, he realised how out of date the game really was. When he got back to the office, he told Ken Williams that “it’s so behind the times it might as well be wearing a leisure suit”, a joke which kicked off a new approach for the remake. It was decided that the basis of Softporn Adventure would be kept intact (the locations, plot, structure and puzzles are relatively unchanged), but that the game would feature an onscreen protagonist and much more humour.

"Holy Cow! Her boobs are huge!" Who says computer games shouldn't be considered art!

Much time was spent on the creation of said protagonist, with the end result being a 40 year old slightly fat, balding, out of style loser named Larry Laffer. His name was originally going to be Jerry, after one of Al’s friends who regularly visited the office and thought of himself as a fantastic lover, but was changed to Larry so as not to offend the real Jerry. Al then skimmed an encyclopaedia trying to find a suitable surname that began with L, and knew he had the right one as soon as he saw the name Arthur Laffer (an American economist). With that sorted, the duo began work on what would eventually be known as Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. The main challenge that they faced during the development was that Mark was only available for four weeks due to his commitments to Space Quest, and therefore had to work nights and weekends to get the game finished. It took a total of three months to complete, but was delayed until June 1987 while it was beta tested (a first for a Sierra game).

This is actually a really cool cover, despite being pink!

The company was clearly uncertain about how Leisure Suit Larry would be received, and decided to release it with no publicity or advertising. This resulted in the worst first month sales for any Sierra game ever, and Al figured he’d just wasted six months of his life on a complete failure. But word of mouth spread quickly and the game’s sales doubled every month, despite some stores refusing to sell it due to its questionable content. It eventually sold in advance of 250000 copies and is also widely known as one of the most pirated games in history. Sierra claims that they sold more hint books than they did actual games, but who knows how true that is. Anyway, that’s enough history, it’s time to help Larry get laid! As always, I’ll be playing the original 1987 version, in all its 16 colour glory, and not the 256 colour 1991 remake. I’ve downloaded a version for DOSBox along with a PDF manual, and am raring to go.

How can I possibly not get laid!?