Leisure Suit Larry 1: Land of the Lounge Lizards
VGA Version
Point-and-Click, 3rd person, cartoon
Some things from the past are best left alone. Many people hold Mr. Larry Laffer as one of their most beloved adventure game characters. Yet I had not yet had the experience of playing any of the series, and I thought that it might be godo to jump in with the first. Let me say I was unimpressed. If you are a great larry lover, you might not want to read on. But, if you havn't yet experienced the world of Leisure Suit Larry, read on to find out a little bit about him....
PLOT
It's simple, really: You play Larry Laffer, a horny, old, leisure-suit wearing 'ladies man' who wants to find a woman to take back to his bedroom and.. well.. you know.
I think what you get out of this game depends on the point of view you are bringing into it.. So I will try to view this game from the different points of view..
IF YOU ARE: An adventure gamer looking for puzzles and plot...
...you are going to be disapointed. I was shocked by the lack of puzzles in this game. I wasn't expecting much plot-wise; I felt I already knew it and it wasn't the type of game where plot was a necessary. But the lack of puzzles was a major flaw. Most of the game is spent doing one thing: making money. You need cash in order to ride the taxi around. That's right, every trip takes major cash that you have to earn. How? you can play either slots or blackjack in the casino. This may have been fun in the 80's but doesn't hold up today. I would say about 70% of my game time was playing blackjack. A huge flaw. Other puzzles were almost nonexistent. The final one requires that you find something *offscreen* to solve it. I don't know how anyone did without a walkthrough back then! Another large chunk of time is spent with the "parental control" feature which requires you to pass a trivia quiz about the 60's and 70's in order to start the game up. This was just annoying, in my opinion.
IF YOU ARE: A fan of ribald jokes and baudy humor...
...you are going to be disapointed. It just wasn't funny. There were about 10 jokes scattered throughout the game. A few were great, I will admit. Many fell flat. Highlights include an incredible death sequence toward the beginning of the game (they really went out of their way to make that fun) and a mad-lib on a telephone. (yes, the mad lib was the highlight). I just don't think the humor is something an adult would enjoy.. It seems to be set on more of a junior high level.
IF YOU ARE: Looking for cartoon sex and nudity!!!
...you are going to be disapointed. I think some of the fun of this game when it came out was that it was 'adult' and sort of shocking.. A cartoon-y game about sex? Nudity in a computer game? It was breaking through barriers and saying that computer gaming wasn't just a toy for children. But its too bad that it didnt' know where to take it. This game is not pornographic. (The entirety of nudity is half a cartoon nipple IF you happen to hit a button). But the game isn't adult, either. It's porky's-style jokes best aimed at youngsters. So who was the game really aiming for? Who was it's intended audience? It seems confused to me.
IF YOU ARE: nostalgic for sierra's adventure games of the 1980's...
..then you might actualy enjoy lesiure suit larry. It is best looked at through the rose-colored glasses of nostagia for the past. Back then all these factors that I found to be dull or even annoying were considered exiting and revolutionary. However, if you return to this game after a long absence and find yourself disapointed, don't say I didn't warn you!
Recommendation: If you want to see an old adventure game, play the kings quest remakes instead.
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I then purchased game number 6 which I found to be even more fun than seven. Lounge Lizards has yet to be played. Its quite old, on floppies and all but am curious to see how it all got it's start. Wish we could look forward to numbers 8,9..... 
