Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded

Just when you thought it safe to declare polyester dead, Larry Laffer has slunk back onto the scene. The title character of the Leisure Suit Larry games, which popped into the public consciousness in 1987 and pulled out of it again after a couple of sloppy engagements during the last decade, isn't so much trying to score a new success as he is reestablish his old bona fides. Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded, in fact, is almost a scene-by-scene remake of the 1991 VGA remake of the series' inaugural chapter. This new version is the product of a successful Kickstarter project shepherded by Larry's creator, Al Lowe, now ensconced at Replay Games The final product, though polished for what it is, isn't an easy sell; you may never forget your first time, but this game won't give you anything new to remember.

Larry, Past and Present
What distinguished the original (which was conceived as a graphical update to 1981's all-text Softporn Adventure) and its two immediate sequels were that they were more than simple-minded sex romps. Sure, Larry started as a 40-year-old virgin in 1970s clothing who vowed to become a man during one night in the gambling capital of Lost Wages. But they were really genre comedies in which sex just happened to feature prominently.

The first (the "losing it" flick), the second, 1988's Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places), a twisted spy thriller; and the third, subtitled Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals, which fused a midlife crisis tale with the novelty of switching player control to Larry's latest love interest about two-thirds of the way through, shared a stiff undercurrent of realism that anchored their absurd plots. Larry was more palatable as an impossibly pathetic loser if everyone around him was rigidly committed to factual existence (or at least a close approximation of one). The worlds might have been wacky, but they made sense on their own terms?and thus Larry could be believably at odds with it all.

Unfortunately, with Reloaded, Lowe has latched onto the look and feel of the much less satisfying entries that followed, which featured trailblazing video and sound, clunky no-typing interfaces, and a dedication to caricature in design and story that capture none of the originals' virulent charm. The result is something more rickety than raunchy.

Enter, Stage Lefty
You begin, as you always have, outside Lefty's Bar, and proceed on your quest through the dingy city streets and questionable night spots in search of the women who can give you what you want. Locales are well chosen, but limited: there's a convenience store (with the expected Indian cashier), a nightclub, an all-night wedding chapel, and a glitzy hotel-casino, all of which will naturally become important at some point. You can (and, in fact, must) gamble at certain points, fraternize with various females with whom you can occupy a bed (and perhaps a?gasp?long-term relationship), and explore a bit to sample all of the lubricated grit this desert oasis of sin has to offer.

All this still works on the most basic levels, but things are a bit wartier on this go-round. Lost Wages looks self-consciously skeevy in its incarnation here, as though it's trying too hard to be gritty and run-down, and the effect is neither evocative nor amusing. The visuals are fine for what they are, though the people and animals who resemble paper cutouts fail to mesh stylistically with their surroundings, making the playing experience even more distancing.

Hand, Tongue, Zipper
The interface, from which you select pictures representing the actions you want to perform (walking legs, a hand, your inventory, a tongue, and a zipper?the last two getting far less use than you may expect), remains a depressing simplification that inhibits exploration and creativity, and shepherds you more into a linear puzzle narrative than it does richer puzzle solving. It also sets up its share of ridiculous scenarios, such as when you discover a password you need to use later: Because you only interact with objects, you have to cut your body, write the password in blood on a piece of paper, and then show it to the person who needs to see it. In 1987 you just typed it in.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/AaL3R_S2zR8/0,2817,2422463,00.asp

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