It’s been a long way back for Larry Laffer. While other heroes had the good fortune to merely be forgotten, Larry had to see his name dragged through the mud by two terribly-received titles that embraced the kind of frat-boy humor the series was once meant to lampoon. Series creator Al Lowe compared the angst of watching these releases to receiving a hostage video of a loved one: “You’re happy he’s still alive, but at the same time, he’s being tortured.”
Well Larry has been freed from his captors, and is back in the hands of the Sierra veterans at Replay Games, a team that includes Al Lowe and his long-time co-conspirator Josh Mandel. To remind the world of what Larry once was, and to help erase the memory of his recent failures, Replay has elected to remake the 1987 original that started it all.
Although the original is a bit dated (well, ok, more than a bit), it’s a wise move in some ways, because Leisure Suit Larry is often horribly misunderstood. Often remembered as the sort of naughty game you weren’t supposed to play, it’s sometimes mistaken for either some kind of softcore erotica, or just a crass, immature parade of dick jokes, and it’s really neither. Larry began life as a satire of the campy text-based Softporn Adventure, and it’s designed to take the piss out of a game that would celebrate a shallow womanizer. Larry himself is not a suave ladies’ man who wants to love ‘em and leave em’, he’s a 40-year old virgin, with a horribly dated fashion sense who, behind his lust, is actually horribly lonely.
To bring the series into the 21st century, Replay and developer N-Fusion have given the game a complete audiovisual makeover, with redrawn, high-def graphics, a new soundtrack by Journey composer Austin Wintory, and a revised design with a point-and-click interface. They’ve even gone so far as to rewrite and expand the entire script, and pack it with more jokes than ever before.
The new graphics look sharp, but suffer a bit for lack of consistency. The backgrounds are hand-painted, gritty, and really serve the seedy atmosphere of Lost Wages, but they’re often marred by poorly-integrated fonts for text elements like signs. Characters are crisp and cartoony, looking closer to Love for Sail than Larry’s early adventures, but these too seem to be drawn in two disparate styles. Some characters – in particular those based on Kickstarter backers – are drawn in a more realistic style, and have a tendency to sit around half-grinning and awkwardly staring at the camera like someone who just realized they’re on TV. It’s clear N-Fusion has some good artists, but there seems to be a need for some more high-level art direction in the future. Still, it looks a lot better than LucasArts’ Monkey Island remakes as well as Larry’s 1991 VGA treatment.
The design, while revised, stays close to the original. The puzzles have been expanded in places, and some of the rough edges have been smoothed out, but by and large this is the same game you remember, and those who recall the original puzzles will blow through the game quickly. A few important things have been fixed. There are no more dead-ends, and death is no longer a real impediment, as you’ll simply respawn right where you left off. One or two of the puzzles have been changed to be more intuitive, and the writing gives somewhat clearer hints as well.
Unfortunately there are a few vestiges of Larry’s ‘80s design that still hurt the experience. Outdoor areas are bounded by utterly pointless alleyways that result in an instant death. These deaths don’t matter anymore, of course, but the mere existence of these areas will confuse those new to the game. There’s also the need to gamble to earn money, which basically means saving when you win and loading when you lose for a few minutes. You’ll only have to do this twice in the game, and it isn’t a big deal, but it seems like the kind of thing that could have been better handled by adding a puzzle to get cash. Overall, the design feels more expanded than refined. There are a couple new rooms, a new girl for Larry to seduce, and a few new puzzles, making the game maybe 15% longer overall. This helps, since the game is still on the short side, but it’s hardly a whole new game.
For all of the resources invested in the sights, sounds, and additions, the biggest improvement in this remake is still its rewritten script. A lot of the joy of old text-parser adventures like Larry came from experimentation; simply trying things for the sake of amusement, even if you knew it wouldn’t solve the puzzle. In this remake almost every combination of a verb and an object yields some kind of unique, humorous response. Two of the game’s verbs aren’t even needed to complete the game and exist solely for the sake of getting silly reactions. If you blow through the game doing only what is necessary, you’ll miss most of the jokes and a lot of the fun.
The humor in Larry is often misunderstood. Like a bad pick up line, a lot of it willfully corny and low-brow, but it’s delivered with a sarcastic bite that makes its real intent clear. This is helped along by the addition of voice acting, with a droll narrator who oozes contempt for the player and Larry alike. The voices are excellent, and with the exception of inventory messages, absolutely everything is voiced. Good jokes, well-told make the remake well worth playing for anyone who still loves the original, and the game is often laugh-out-loud funny.
The dated design might make Reloaded a bit daunting to newer players, but the writing and voice acting should be reason enough to plow ahead. It probably won’t convert anyone who found the original to be too crass, too short, or too frustrating, but for anyone who still has love for Larry Laffer, this is simply a no-brainer. It’s undeniably the best version of the classic adventure, and the new treatment is well worth another trip through Lost Wages.
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