Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded

Ever imagined having a life where you’re constantly mocked because of your appearance, never getting the girls, and stay virgin while you’re still at forties? Don’t look too far fellows; you get it right here while playing as the legendary Larry Laffer. A high definition remake of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards by Replay Games is finally here, and Larry gets his break for not being a virgin anymore. Life has never been easy for him and it still isn’t. He might not have to save the world from an alien assault, or run-and-gun down the entire enemy armada, but the list of things he must do to finally meet his true love are pathetic, yet hilarious.

Those of you aren’t familiar with Larry Laffer, here’s a small intro. If a list of most pathetic video game protagonists in the history is ever made, Larry would probably be in there. He’s a forty years old virgin dreaming to find his one true love. Since he can’t accomplish that from living in his mother’s basement, fate brings him to the city of Lost Wages. Here he must find something someone attractive for losing out his virginity. For that, however, he must bump into women of numerous professions such as police officers, divers, con-women, and even prostitutes. That’s not all, though. The number of things he must perform to get their attentions are sinful. But Larry doesn’t care. No matter what it takes, he is determined to finally get that ultimate pleasure out of his pants. Thus the story begins in the Lefty’s Bar at the city of Lost Wages.

Plots of this remake stay somewhat same as the original, though the genre now fits more as a point-and-click as you don’t have to type in the commands to perform actions anymore. But in terms of how the game progresses, it’s still the same as before. Not just play, but motionless surroundings and hand-drawn characters as well - only this time they look polished and reorganized. Jan Rabson reprises to his role as Larry, and is accompanied by a narrator voiced by Brand Venable.

 Voice-acting is the feature that really highlights this game, but in a manner this game needs to be played lets it down. Point-and-click titles are meant to be pixel hunting, and it’s not too different here either. Every object in each scenario needs to be looked at, and conversation with every single character needs to be conducted too. You simply can’t miss checking something out because that might put a pause on your progress on the story. Conversations you know could be of no use but still need to be attended. At times it feels this has been done deliberately to lengthen the gameplay. If this hadn’t been done, the game hardly takes an hour to complete.

During the play, Larry gets to travel to five different locations and meets dozens of characters. I suspect that most of these characters are made out of the development team members. They are given funny descriptions and appearances too. Conversations with these people are sometimes useless, but somewhat hilarious. To meet all these characters and explore new items, however, Larry must use a taxi to travel from one place to another. But traveling doesn’t come for free as he must pay for each ride. There are slot machines from where Larry can get cash, and if you’re smart, you should figure out how to make enough coin and not get beaten up by the taxi driver. There are some basic actions Larry can perform such as ‘look’, ‘take’, ‘lick’, and ‘unzip’, and his briefcase where he puts his salvaged items. You get to perform all these actions over every single character or object, and your narrator or the character responses with something comical.

Despite the hilariousness, the game has its drawbacks. One of them is that the game is way too small. Anyone with average intelligent can finish the game within two hours, even less. The game feels all about exploring items, rather than accomplishing something that involves solving puzzles or actual gameplay. Soon you realize that all you have to do is try out every possible combination and you’re going to get lucky. This is frustrating because you know it does nothing but waste your time. There isn’t a single area that requires you to sweat your brain and figure something out. Another frustrating factor is when conversations with the major characters take place. During these times, you aren’t given any choice what can alter the situation, rather a series of questions which you’re forced to ask to progress the story. When there’s going to be a second remake after long twenty two years, I expect a little better than just exploring a story, I expect a little more dynamisms.

In the end, yes, I am not delighted as how I expected to be, but I must confess that I’ve had some good laughs. There are elements in the game that truly are riotous, but the final output has to be considered as a missed opportunity. Good news for the fans that this remake doesn’t cost much. And, if you are a sexist by heart and enjoys trying out your bad luck with every female you come across, this is a title that gives you a graphical presentation of it.

Sarwar Ron, NoobFeed @SarwarRon