Is it just me, or are video games pushing the envelope further and further lately? We’ve got the Grand Theft Auto series, which has spawned so much controversy over the past several years it makes Michael Jackson look good. Then we have games like Doom, and Half Life, who love to fully detail the human anatomy with the end result being splattering it all over the floor. And on the other end of the spectrum you have games like Playboy: The Mansion and The Guy Game, which are pretty self-explanatory.



Recently I stumbled upon a game which I had forgotten about until my newly acquired Xbox came to me. Now, I can’t say that this is a new idea, because this franchise started well before Doom, or Grand Theft Auto, and when it comes to sexual innuendos, sleazy women, and satisfying the human “urge”, only one name is synonymous with all three: Leisure Suit Larry.

Before I continue, I need to stress to any caring parent: DO NOT LET YOUR CHILD PLAY THIS GAME! If you think I’m kidding, why not pick up a copy of the game and try it for yourself? Within the first 10 minutes you’ll see why. This isn’t like the usual “whack-the-hooker” in Grand Theft Auto, for this game touches upon a topic much more sensitive and much more reserved than blowing some guy's head off with a shotgun (which, I’m sorry to say, seems to be the norm for society these days)



That topic is simple: sex.

Did you see that? Yes folks, that which religion condemns and society hushes, I’m talking about a game that sends you off on a quest to get laid! But this isn’t original for a Leisure Suit Larry game. As a matter of fact, the original games were all about this: Larry, the so-called Lounge Lizard, wants to do the horizontal tango. In fact, he wants to so bad that he’ll suffer getting humiliated, falling into trash bins, getting the crap beat out of him, and the list goes on and on…. LSL started back in the mid ‘80s by, what some would call a genius, Al Lowe. Al created the original installments of Larry, starting with Land of the Lounge Lizards. This was one of those games that you had to type commands and see if they worked (for example: LOOK to observe surroundings, PICK UP BOOK to pick up a book, etc). The concept of a game such as this, at least back in those days, was very hush-hush. Back then, it was still slightly indecent to talk of sex, let alone play a game related to it! I didn’t even know about Larry until the ‘90s, and by then Al Lowe had produced at least 4 more sequels, eventually ending in LSL7: Love for Sail. Back then, a company called Sierra games was in charge of keeping Larry “vertical”, but as soon as Vivendi Universal came around, all that was about to change.

Sierra, from what I understand, is no more (it's more of a Label than a full blown studio). Vivendi Universal phased them out after Magna Cum Laude came out, or was still under development. In fact, the original creator of Larry, Al Lowe, had no part in this latest installment whatsoever, so the latest Larry game would be on it’s own without the driving force of its original creator. Now the big question: does Magna Cum Laude hold up to it’s predecessor?



In the original Larry games, gags were abundant and the storyline was ripe with puzzles, quests, and hidden objectives that befuddled most people. In short, Leisure Suit Larry was an extremely basic adventure game. Magna Cum Laude has since abolished this, and replaced all of the puzzles and quests with mini-games. Gags are aplenty, but the raunchiness and lewdness of MCL has got the original Larry titles beat with no contest. Matter of fact, most of the swearing and sheer insanity is enough to fill the original Larry games and have enough left over for the mysterious Leisure Suit Larry 4: The Missing Floppies (never made).

The best way I can sum up the events in MCL is this: take parts from popular movies such as Revenge of The Nerds, Eurotrip, American Pie, Van Wilder, and the like. What you have is simply a digitized version of all of these movies that try to sum up the “ideal” college experience: getting drunk, getting laid, lots of Top Ramen, school pranks, panty raids, frat initiations, the list goes on.



An example of this: with most of the women that Larry has to try and pick-up on, it usually involves a game of quarters (for those who aren’t familiar with the quarters drinking game……look it up online). From there, you can either lead Larry to mix drinks, streak the campus, compete in dance or trampoline contests, play knock-off games similar to Tapper, or anything else that people would generally associate with “normal college campus life”. Now, for a game which involves partial nudity (until you get to unlock all of it), drunkenness, and sex, it’d be great for a bunch of guys to sit around and play while knocking back a few cold ones (speaking from personal experience).

Something that you may need to keep in mind is that, over time the mini-games can get a bit annoying. They can get even more annoying if you’re trying to obtain secret tokens to purchase special items. There are about seven types of mini-games, which can alter slightly depending on the game. For example, one type of game is to press a sequence of buttons in the right order. The basis of the game can change, a dance-off, trampoline contest, etc, but the way in which the game is played does not alter. The character action on screen can be entertaining, but when you’re looking for money and the only way to obtain a ton of it is to play the same game over and over again…….repetitive becomes the bastard-child of understatement.

Upon learning that the original creator had no hand in MCL whatsoever, I noticed that there was something drastically changed about this new game: it didn’t really have a soul. Magna Cum Laude is fun, I’ll give you that. However if you’re looking for a game that challenges you mentally and rewards that at the end, look elsewhere…maybe even back to the original Larry games. At best, I can surmise that Magna Cum Laude is a party game, because the games require little brain power and to actually play the game, probably less. While I can say that MCL is just a “big dumb fun” game and be correct, it teeters dangerously close to being worthy of the name “Leisure Suit Larry”, because it lacks the initiation and overall intelligence that Al Lowe put into the originals. A good attempt, but somewhere along the translation, Vivendi and their co-developers lost something.

Don’t get me wrong: MCL is fun, and I have enjoyed playing it. What a lot of fans of the Leisure Suit Larry franchise should understand is that this is not the original Larry, and people who assume that before playing will be sadly (and I would assume angrily) disappointed. This is simply one of those games that you can play, just to play! There’s no real thinking involved, no thought as to figuring out a puzzle…you don’t have to go across the map to speak with what’s-his-name and find out he needs a bottle of rum, then try to obtain the bottle of rum and find out to get the rum you need to pull a switch that requires a combination, which the combination to is somewhere you haven’t been to yet, and….

Another issue which, while playing with fellow friends and constituents, is the loading time. Besides playing mini-game after mini-game, this can also get pretty annoying. The game loads actions, interactions, dialogue and what-not into one scene. The issue is that there can be so much happening in one scene, loading time can vary. So that 15-second time to load up the dorm room can be nothing compared to the 30-second loading it takes for the dance club. However, the developers decided to try and ease that tension with risqué loading screens. The screens change each time the game has to load, and they either show the computer-generated models of the babes you have to bag, real models representing said babes, or other funny (sometimes raunchy) advertisements. Unfortunately, if you don’t acquire new loading screens from the dealer, Nigel (he sports a green Mohawk and often found leaning against walls), those screens can get pretty boring….pretty fast.

Overall, Leisure Suit Larry is fun to play. You won’t waste any brainpower trying to figure it out, there’s nothing you need to write down and refer to later, and there’s enough hilarity to keep you entertained for a few days (keep screwing with the hackey-sack guy outside of your dorm….that’s my personal favorite). Due to its language, theme, and overall events which transpire in the game though, keep the kids away. I thought my parents were nuts for keeping me out of the room while watching Eddie Murphy Raw when I was a tyke…..this is close to Raw, 21st Century style. However, if you are a fan of the original Larry installments, don’t expect the same charisma or flair that they had with this….it’s a new chef trying to add some added spice in the same kitchen, only they used too much of the wrong spice.