Happy Saturday to you all! Time for another Retrogaming Retrospective here at RGN, and for the first time, I am going to be focusing on a game that is not console based, at least not at the time of the first games release. This game was released on nearly every computer system possible, from the Apple II & DOS machines (my memories of the game), to the Amiga and TRS-80 Color Computer. It was originally released by one of the most cherished retro video game publishers of the 1980s and 1990s: Sierra On-Line (Later merged to Sierra Entertainment). And, it was more than likely the game that coined the term “40 year old virgin”. This time around, we’ll be looking at the original version of the first release of “Leisure Suit Larry in The Land Of The Lounge Lizards”.



First off, a little bit of history about the game, in case you don’t know how the franchise started. Sierra On-Line was famous for it’s “graphical text adventure” games of the late 80s and early 90s. In the beginning of computer games, many times it was just pure text. You had to do a lot of reading, and use your mind in many different situations to get to the end of the game. Some games like the original “Zork” series proved that such games can be successful, however, Sierra had it’s own way of doing things. Aside from there being the text based commands, the top two-thirds of the monitor shows your actions in a more pictorial and visual manner, not only making the game easier to understand and control, but making it much more appealing. This type of game style would be used in other Sierra games such as the Space Quest series, Kings Quest series, and Police Quest series. (Of course, as time went on, the text based entry for all four of the franchises would change to a mouse based “point and click” interface, but for this period, it is still quite effective and satisfying.



In this game, you play the part of Larry Laffer: A middle aged, balding, lonely gentleman, who has yet to ever experience the opposite sex. While the character can seem sleazy and unlikeable, for some reason, he’s just quite loveable. The object of the game is to not only get Larry to finally lose his virginity after all of these years, but to do it in the most satisfying manner possible. In the game there are four different women: A nameless prostitute, a woman you meet at a local Discotheque (where you can dance to a PC Speaker version of the classic Bee Gees track “Stayin’ Alive”, a receptionist, and a (literal) bathing beauty. All four women have advantages and disadvantages, everything from getting married, to getting used, to contracting an STD. This is the type of game that if “Night Trap” had been released in the mid-1980s, the ESRB would more than likely had been created many years prior. Because Sierra On-Line knew that this was an adult game, when the game starts, before you can play it, you have to do a very strange form of age verification to start. You have to answer 3 questions that only an adult would know at the time. However, this WAS 1987, and some questions are long out dated. (For example, one of the questions asks who “OJ Simpson” was. While one of the answers is a football player, another {incorrect} answer is a convicted felon.) Of course, there is a way around this by pressing a hot key backdoor.



So basically, the game is quite simple. You’re a single bachelor, looking to finally experience intercourse. You start off at a local tavern, and from there, you can go to various places such as a club, convenience store, casino and wedding chapel. You can walk to the next screen to adjacent locations, but if you go too far, Larry can get mugged and eventually killed. You can also rely on public transportation (taxicab) to get from one place to the next. This costs money, of course, which you earn by going to the casino and playing either blackjack or slots. (Playing slots almost always gives you instant payout.) Depending on the situations that you go through, will indicate what type of ending you have. You can sleep with the wrong woman type and get VD, which will kill you shortly after intercourse. You can pick the another wrong woman who will tie you to a bed and leave you for dead, or, you could meet the girl of your dreams and live happily every after.

Leisure Suit Larry is actually a very good puzzle game. You have to take a lot of situations, and figure out what to do to get people (the female variety and otherwise), to do what you need. For instance, you have to figure out how to get the pimp to leave his station to get upstairs. You have to figure out how to get into the club, since it’s private and the bouncer won’t let you in. And how exactly do you get to the penthouse at the casino/hotel? If you like critical thinking games that aren’t too difficult, but just enough to make you think for a few moments, you’ll very much enjoy this game. I know there are many games out there in which you have to do a lot of thinking, which is just fine, I enjoy them personally. But when the puzzles get too hard, it starts to take all of the fun out of it. Not such the case in the original Leisure Suit Larry.



Obviously, in a game like this, there is a lot of sexual innuendo. When the game was first released, Sierra released the game with no advertising whatsoever, because they honestly didn’t know if the game should have been released at all. So, the games were shipped to stores, and they saw what happened. Most computer software stores refused to stock it on shelves, but some had no problem selling it, as long as it was kept behind the cashier’s counter. (Much like other adult based games of the era for computers and a special touch for a handful of Atari 2600 cartridges that we all know and love.) The success of this game was solely thanks to word of mouth. It eventually won an award for “Best Fantasy, Role Playing, or Adventure Game of 1987” by the Software Publishers Association. (You remember them… “Don’t copy that floppy!”) In an ironic turn of events, it was also one of the most pirated pieces of software ever published. Creator Al Lowe once stated in an interview that pirated copies outnumber legal distribution by nearly 6 to 1, mostly because of embarrassment to actually buy a copy of the game in public. (This was way before eBay folks!) I was on the list of the pirates for many years. A copy of the game was given to me by my brothers girlfriend, and I was only 14 at the time!



I know that this sounds like a completely lame concept of a game, especially for the era that it was made in. But all of that aside, the game itself is quite fun. As long as you enjoy text command line style games. Chances are, if you were interested in this article, you have some type of a love for the Sierra company, or at least enjoyed one of the many games in their catalog. If you liked playing games like Space Quest, you’ll love this game. It has a lot of unique humor to it. First off, various death scenes include everything from getting mugged and suicide, but you can also drown in the bathroom by flushing the toilet. (I mean it.) The fun part is when you die, you go to “Sierra Recycling Center”, where you see how adventure games are “Made, Not Born!” The taxi driver could steal and drink a bottle of wine, causing an accident. Dare I say there was a part where you get, um, bit off? Not to mention other times, where you get humiliated by buying condoms at the store, or the bad jokes told by the comic at the casino.



Obviously, the game sold quite well. The original is getting a High Definition remake for smartphones and downloads on modern systems, making it actually the second time it was re-released. (The game was released with better VGA graphics in 1991.) The series is also on it’s eighth game. Some of the more current sequels of the game have not been up to par, which happens after 8 in a series. (Remember Friday The 13th Part VIII?) But all in all, the original is simply classic. If you have a twisted mind, or it’s at least open, then you’ll want to track down a copy of the original game in the Leisure Suit Larry series. (Heck, I hear the pirated copies go for a lot at the auction!) Just make sure you wear your “Peppermint flavored, striped, smooth, colored, libbed lubber!”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw2ZZGc5m_o]