Leisure Suit Larry goes 3D

Leisure Suit Larry was always the black sheep—the offbeat cousin of other Sierra computer game franchises like Kings Quest and Police Quest. While these more respected games have evaporated, luckless Larry continues. Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude is the eighth installment in this odd-ball, risqué series, and targets the same small audience as its ancestors.

Larry is the ultimate loser, desperately chasing women but somehow always missing. In the latest installment, young Larry plays a community college student struggling to get the girls and a spot on the reality-dating show Swiggles. To do so, he must use his sleaze-ball charm to prove himself to be a ladies man. Larry, always the disgusting, obtrusive, sexist moron, somehow proves honest enough to be likeable. His one positive attribute is his persistence: no matter how many times he is denied, Larry always triumphs by the end. Unfortunately, this same trait fails as a game feature.

Instead of the old point and click puzzle solving of its predecessors, Magna Cum Laude uses a series of mini-games to tie together the plot. A dancing mini-game resembles a dumbed-down Dance Dance Revolution, and the version of quarters in the game is a simple, back-and-forward button mash. Players perform in the most frequent mini-game, leading Larry through a conversation, by steering a sperm around obstacles to bonus objects. These games and several more like them make up the vast majority of the game play. While enjoyable at first, they are repetitive, sometimes frustrating and, eventually, simply boring.

The beauty of Larry, however, is not the mini-games, it is the humor. Leisure Suit Larry is the filthiest game you will ever play. The designers seemed hell-bent on making every moment disgusting. Larry’s random conversations always revolve around an awkward sexual failure, and he encounters a disturbingly large number of dildos, phallic symbols and transvestites. Even the loading screens in between different areas of the campus feature models posing provocatively. Certainly this game is chauvinistic, but it is so aware of its own stupidity and its humor is so tongue-in-cheek that it is impossible to hate. Unfortunately, the actual quality of play will leave even the most dedicated Larry fans at half mast.