Techtite's PC Game Reviews!

"The truth is, while not the funniest game I've ever played, it is the funniest game I've played in four years."

---from the review

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Sidebar :

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Pros: The Grease song parody, great voice acting, excellent animation, excellent (ahem) models and texture mapping.

Cons: The "real" load screens, The Porn Fairy, the very preventable game design errs, not having Al Lowe as consultant.

The Seventh Game...? Yes. A close up of Larry's PC, later in the game, reveals it is running Larry 4. This is a running gag in Larry land, where Larry 4 was "stolen" by the biggest bad guy, at the end of Larry 5. In the end; Larry 5 was an in-joke, where the game was actually the fourth game, but that game was "stolen" by a Big Bad Guy, which you had to stop.

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Leisure Suit Larry: 

Magna Cum Laude

Click picture to order this game (PC/windows version)

A Techtite Review

Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude may be the seventh game in the series, and yet it's also the start of many firsts. It's the first Larry game in 3D graphics, it's the first Larry game offered with an "action" game element, and it's the first time the series has broken boundaries it only teased about in the past, by offering a true-blue interactive R-rated comedy. Then again: it's also the first time the series has been attempted without the game series' creator Al Lowe. Oh well; three out of four isn't bad. The truth is, while not the funniest game I've ever played, it is the funniest game I've played in four years.

The premise is a new "Larry," for a new generation. Larry Lovage (the original series hero's nephew) is a seventh-year senior in college, when a dating show called "Swingles" hits campus. The series' host, Uma, scoffs at the thought of Larry being a contestant. You'll show her! You must proceed through an array of mini-game style puzzles and conversations, in order to woo at least two of three dates, per each "round" of Swingles. Get to the fifth round, and you may even win a date with the girl of your dreams. What's even better is: there are three totally different "dream" girls to choose from, leading to three totally different happy endings. Cool.

Here's the joke: Larry is quite frankly a loser. So, how else to get closer to that winning prize on Swingles, then to, well...cheat? The ways Larry gets these ladies to date him range from him pretending to be a talent scout to him pretending to be a college mascot. Hey; anything for the ladies, right? The trouble is, lies always come back to bite you in the...well, you know, so Larry's first gaggle of dates don't go so well. It's the way these dates riotously fail, however, that is half the fun.

It helps that the ladies are not mere 2-D caricatures. Yeah, characters are 3D polygons, but who knew that clever voice acting could make such comical, cartoon-like characters so "real"...? Sure, like all adventures, there's a lot of moments where all characters do is talk. These moments are still fun, thanks to cute characters and cute voice acting.

Not that all talk is not all play in this game; the first time in adventure games I've ever felt like saying that. Conversations are a needed commodity in order to tell any story, true, and yet for over two decades, adventure games have tried in vain to find a way to make these conversations more interactive. Magna Cum Laude accomplishes this --very brilliantly-- with a mini game where you must guide your --ahem-- tadpole-of-sorts, through a maze of obstacles on the bottom third of the screen. Hitting green obstacles lead to either sobriety or a good remark; red obstacles lead to either drunkenness, or a sleazy (or totally comical) remark. This is the core challenge of the game, and with new icons/obstacles to avoid in later conversations, it is actually pretty fun.

It's also pretty fair. Unlike most adventure games of old, a "perfect" win in a mini-game is not required. At one point, I accidentally hit only the red, funny conversation choices, yet kept my heart-meter up with the green heart power-ups throughout the conversation. In short, I was able to use my strategy to hear the funniest conversation choices, yet win the mini-game anyway; cool. The game proceeds as long as your heart meter is in the green zone. This is a lot less frustrating than earlier adventures, which had you figure out the "exact" conversation to proceed. This update to the adventure formulae will unlikely tick off fans.

What will make this game so controversial to diehard Larry fans is how the entire game is one big mini-game. Get asked to dance, and you must engage in a mini game a la Space Channel 5, pressing the dance move keys in exactly the right sequence. A "quarters" game isn't tough per se; just pull back on the mouse and push down at just the right time to get the quarter in the glass. Then there's the salute to "Root Beer Tapper," which I liked as an arcade game, so I was really in my element here. Then again; if you were never a fan of this arcade game classic, that's bad news. It recurs quite frequently here.

There's even a surprising amount of backtracking possible here, very ingeniously. Did you like dancing with country-girl Sally Mae? Just go back to the dorm where you found her, and she's still there to dance with you, any time you wish. The freedom of exploration is that non-linear. There's even some rewards to find via exploration. Try to "use" various items around campus, and you'll either find lost cash or "secret tokens." Give enough tokens to a punk-rocker dude named Nigel --seen here and there around campus-- and you can buy various upgrade items, ranging from a "strip" option for various games (strip quarters, anyone?), or handicaps for the harder games (a stronger water gun for the wet T-shirt contest, for example).  As for money, use it in stores and concession machines, for items such as special costumes (hint: some of the harder dates will not talk to Larry without the right duds). So, if your requirement for adventuring is a lot of secrets to unlock or discover, this game has it covered.

Then again, there's the censored factor. Ever since that ditsy doodle of a Janet Jackson showed her right boob for all of 0.025 seconds at the Super Bowl, everyone is in a tizzy about even the briefest of nudity. Mind you; on 9:00 prime time a woman can have a bullet shot straight through her chest in CSI --complete with fluid animation of how the heart exploded when it happened-- but if she so much as bares too much cleavage, the FCC is furious. Go figure. Okay; enough editorializing. This is a game review after all...of a censored...cartoon-animated...game. I'm just saying. Cartoon characters; censored game. Weird.

The point is: at the eleventh hour, the ESRB game ratings board demanded all lower nudity be covered with a "Censored" bar, in the off-the-shelf US version of the game. No, Europe does not get such censorship. No, this censorship isn't too hard to get rid of, with the European version of the singular file you need to make the US version "uncensored" already available online, in various message boards (just search for AppInit.jam in your favorite search engine). This isn't the fault of the game designers though, so I don't fault the game for it. It's just worth mentioning for all the novice gamers who'd complain about the game being so censored. Such gripes are easily corrected, so in the words of Mad Magazine's Newman; what me worry?

So, what are the real flaws here? For one, the occasional load screen offers us a "real" model, posing as one of the characters. This detracts from the cartoon-style levity of the game, and for this critic, the idea falls flat. Likewise for a "porn fairy"; a nearly worthless running gag who pops up whenever you're trying to "use" key pieces of discarded paper around campus (hint: one is in the alley next to the sorority). Then there's the excessive load times, which is admittedly for all these cool textures and highly detailed locations, yet is still pretty distracting for the Grand Theft Auto fan base, where load times are practically nonexistent. Topping off the list of gripes is a lack of replay value, even with all the mini-games present. You can play each game 100 times in one sitting and not a single new obstacle or power up is offered. Bummer.

Does this mean "thumbs down," then? No. It's hard to dislike a new adventure game for a lack of replay value, which in adventures is par for the course. The core factor of any adventure is the story it tells, and this interactive comedy is simply hilarious. One of my favorite moments is when Larry bumps into one of his first dates; the ones he totally botched up. Turns out she is now a lesbian. The how and why to this lifestyle change is told in riotous he said/she said fashion, as everyone in a gay bar sings to the tune of "Summer Nights" from the musical Grease. It's been years since a game that attempted to be an "interactive comedy" had me laughing out loud. This is just one example of many which made this game the happy exception.

It's moments like this that the game does very right that pulls it into "solid thumbs up" territory. The voice acting is perfect. The world, cartoon that it is, is equally perfect, with textures so crystal clear, almost all posters and signs can be literally read. Adding to the fun is Larry Laffer's old hangout, Lefty's, where you can even visit your Uncle Larry himself, for a cute in-game cameo. He even gives you a "gift" if you have 269 secret tokens upon the game's completion. That's one replay element worth the quest to get it.

One parting thought: why didn't they hire Al Lowe, at the very least, as a consultant? When a man who was so conspicuously left out of the project is still so willing to publicize its production status at his own web site, you know you left out a real gem of a guy from your team. I can see how a new team with a new vision for a new game would be wary of a veteran game designer as consultant, but maybe he could've prevented some of the more minor game design flaws...? The excessive load times, the overly ponderous menu hierarchy (seriously; how silly is it to click on load game and have the menu ask if you really want to load the game you just clicked on?); all this could've been avoided with a veteran game designer at the helm. Yet although Al Lowe could've made the game a lot snazzier looking, with all due honesty, I doubt he could've made the game any funnier. Since that's the core purpose of a comedy, this latest Larry game succeeds.

---Techtite