Rent Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude from GameFly!
Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude screenshots:
lets bounce!
loading screen
the kinky one
even HE gets laid
i think she just SAW me!
spanky spanky
anything for love
still dressed
the talking sperm
oh luba!
dont ask
drink up honey
hey there topheavy
say cheese!
hit that spot
um eee yeah
hey baby wanna doit
up periscope
classy broad
how YOU doin
must aim for the GLASS!
.
Kitchen Talk In Russian culture there exists a phenomenon known as kitchen talk. Basically, all the most interesting, controversial and intriguing conversations that take place in a household invariably happen in the kitchen. Like conversations with your brother about the grand purpose of life. Chats your 90 year old grandpa about the strength of the human soul. Or whispers between your twin 7-year old daughters about the meaning of the word 'coitus'.
Throughout all history, kitchen talk has always remained a strictly Russian cultural phenomenon, except, curiously, for a span of several years some time in the late 80's. During these most unusual years, teenagers all over the United States suddenly started coming into their kitchens right in the middle of dinner and asking their parents most unusual, non-childlike questions. Questions like "Mom, what germ transmits syphilis?" and "Dad, why was Thomas Eagleton dropped from the 1972 Democratic National Ticket"? All of a sudden, it seemed like the world has become a very strange place. For a short while it was even rumored that the KGB was involved, and the US secret service reportedly almost launched a massive counter-propaganda offensive. Then, when the world seemed positively poised to collapse into cold war madness, the strange behavior of the American teenagers was suddenly and simply explained.
They were trying to play Leisure Suit Larry.
Cult Classic For those who haven't caught on yet, the first Leisure Suit Larry game, which came out in 1987 on the PC, had a sort of "child-lock" on it. You couldn't play the game unless you could answer 5 "adult" questions correctly. Once you managed, though, you were allowed into a game that was unlike anything else on the market at the time.
Leisure Suit Larry was a real adult adventure game if there ever was one. It followed the adventures of Larry Laffer, a 40-something old specimen of the kind that computer geeks often grow into - a kind of Bill Gates without the money or the potential, if you will. The game detailed his escapades as he tried to do one of the many things he didn't really know how to do: pick up women. Coming out of the brilliant mind of Al Lowe of Sierra Entertainment, the game was very funny in a very adult sort of way - the humor was often subtle and highly referential, making it a parody-rich joy ride for adults who understood the cultural references, stereotypes and nuances of the awkward social situations that Larry invariably got himself into. The meat of the gameplay was creative puzzle solving, as the player had to lend some mental power to Larry's not so twisted noodle in helping him achieve (or fail at achieving, as the case may be) his high goals.
Of course, the game also had glimpses of digitized sex and nudity and so the kids weren't to be kept away for nothing.
Al Lowe went on to make 5 more Leisure Suit Larry games, and then, as all good things in life, the famous series came to an end. Times changed, games changed, the industry changed, and the adventure game genre all but disappeared into oblivion. Larry had snapped his last bra strap. Or so it seemed.
Nostalgia is a patient and powerful thing. And it was precisely that, coupled, perhaps, an unfortunate distrust of original ideas in modern day game publishing, that brought Larry back to life in an inevitable re-incarnation as his nephew, Larry Lovage.
Welcome to LSL: Magna Cum Laude.
Return of the Jedi
Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Jedi of Loooove has returned! He is even shorter, goofier, and brand spanking newer! His unsightly mug is now in 3D, and - get this! - he has landed himself in college - a fox in a chicken coop! Holy buttcheeks, Batman! Surely, nothing can go wrong now!
Famous Larry words! But let's give the new kid a chance and see how he fares - what are the odds he has learned the RIGHT things from his uncle's famous experiences?
Lovemaking 101 The setup of Magna Cum Laude is very consistent in spirit the classic Larry games: our little manburger of love is in college (God only knows how he managed to get THAT accomplished!), and a dating game show production rolls onto campus. Using his conveniently damaged powers of self-appraisal, Larry naturally figures this American Gigolo crown is his for the taking. Following the rules of the game, he tries to score as many women as possible, and bring back proof of his success the ladies to advance in the show. Of course, the ladies aren't to be had (pun intended!) - not easily, and not by Larry, anyway - though surely not for the lack of trying.
Playing the honeys Almost anything of consequence that you can do in Magna Cum Laude is achieved via a minigame of one kind or another. From the moment you look up at a pair of boobies to the moment that you, well, look up at the next pair of boobies, you will have played at least four or five kinds of different minigames, and most of them more than once. To give credit where credit is due, some of the games are quite good. Of special noteworthiness is the basic conversation minigame. Keyboard or no keyboard, the hilarious, inept babble that was Larry Laffer's communication skills had to be carried across if the classic was to be truly reborn on the console, and the developers found an excellent way to bring it to life without having to resort to tedious conversation trees. As Larry talks to a girl, a spermatozoid (yes, spermatozoid) minigame appears in the bottom part of the screen. Navigate your sperm clear of bad eggs (damn, did I just say that?!) and Larry will say the right thing - or at least not make too much of a fool of himself. Screw up - and he will say things so silly that even THESE girls will start seeing through them. The cool part of it is that the difficulty of the game is dynamically adjusted based on how confident/enubriated Larry happens to be at the moment. His confidence level, displayed on the screen using - well, let's just call things by their real names, shall we? - a penis-meter (!) determines whether he can muster up enough confidence to talk to a particular girl. Confidence can be boosted by - you guessed it! - winning at minigames or, considerably more easily, by drinking. However, the latter approach, besides costing money, results in some loss of control, which translates to increased minigame difficulty, making for an interesting catch 22. As a result, you will inevitably screw up at least some conversations, which is usually quite worth it just to hear the kind of hilarious crap Larry will try to use for pick up lines. All in all, it's a quite novel and entertaining approach to the conversation mechanic.
Many of the other minigames are equally fun at first - you will get to play quarters, try your skills on the trampoline (eeeh, he said "tramp"...) and the dance floor, mix drinks, spank kinky cheerleaders (yes!) and much more - usually while being dutifully distracted (either mentally or visually) by various parts of the female anatomy. The overall variety of games is commendable, however, as all minigames do, they start getting tedious after a while.
A few buts (no, not butts :)) The very thing that can be considered Magna Cum Laude's strong point - minigames - is also it's ultimate weakness. The trouble is simply the fact that there is very little in this game BUT (he said it again!) minigames. You minigame and minigame and minigame, and then you minigame some more. Between the minigames you are awarded by some breasts and booty, which, btw (I can't believe what I am about to say!) are more often than not a little too juicy for a Larry game - frankly, he isn't supposed to score this much, this easily. This exceedingly simple "play a minigame - see some skin" mechanic proves to be the game's undoing.
The key to the success and addictiveness of the original Larry games lay in their challenging puzzle-solving element. Laughing at Larry notwithstanding, those games were all terrific specimen of puzzle based adventure gaming - the kind that made you wake up in the middle of the night because you've dreamt of a solution to a puzzle you've been pondering for two days. Now granted, that kind of gameplay is not everyone's thing, especially these days. But (that's three!) the puzzle-solving element lent a special flavor and quality to the original Larry games that is missing in Magna Cum Laude.
The fact of the matter is that Al Lowe's games truly were games for adults - the message they delivered was "look, we love puzzles, we love adventure, we love to laugh, and we are adult enough to handle adult humor in a video game without wetting our sheets." Magna Cum Laude, try as it might, slips back into the world of "I am video game about scoring chicks," which targets it more at teens who are willing to play minigames till they are blue in the face just to see some digital knockers. Not that, at the prime age of 15, there is anything wrong that :) But it does make for a very different kind of game, the kind that does not really ring true to the Leisure Suit Larry legacy.
All bets are in To be fair, it's rather questionable whether a real true-to-the-original LSL rendition would have had any real (commercial) success in this day and age, especially on the console. The developers of Magna Cum Laude made a calculated bet in reviving the series, and tried to give a facelift not only to the graphics, but also to the concept - trying, for what it was worth, to port the game to a younger generation of gamers. They ended up with a game that is probably more playable by the masses, but is not quite what fans of the original were waiting for. It's still funny, it's still naughty, and it's still Larry, but ultimately, it's no longer a game for adults - it's for teens.
Then again, if gamer demographic studies can be trusted, Vivendi can probably live with that.
Summary: A humorous pseudo-adventure game where you follow the boobies (these are attached to women), play tons of minigames, and try to convince yourself that this is just as good as the original Leisure Suit Larry games from the late 80s and 90s. Then you give up and go digging through your old floppy disk pile. Unless of course you were BORN in the late 80s, in which case you just continue questing for more boobies.
Already played it? Trade it for another game at
Systems: PS2, XBox, PC
Genre: Humorous adventure.
Setting: College campus and parts of the surrounding town.
Mood: Humorously testosteronish.
Story: It's the story of your young life as a female-tracking goofball.
Graphics: Cartoony, special attention paid to all parts of the female anatomy. And the, um, physics engine is nice, too.
Music/Sound: The spanking sounds are expertly done.
Voice Acting: Sultry enough for the women, goofy enough for Larrymeister.
Script/Dialog: Quality stuff, surprisingly in tune with the originals, and funny to boot.
Similar Games: Leisure Suit Larry 1 through 7. Except for Larry 4, which was completely different because it was never made.
Gameplay: Spot a skirt, and then minigames, minigames, minigames. Then you get your reward, wash your hands, and repeat.
Strengths: Some of the minigames are quite enjoyable the first 10 times around, and many of the jokes are actually funny. You get to score hotties, foreign exchange students and campus weirdos.
Weaknesses: There is no real puzzle solving or adventure element, and without that, the appeal is bound to exactly equal your appetite for sexual innuendos.
Depth: How far can you reach down a woman's cleavage before she slaps you silly? About that deep.
Length: Depends on the man, his age, and his sense of humor. I must admin that my 27-year old humor happy self couldn't finish it.
Pace: Yes, please do pace yourself this one. Your women will thank you.
Difficulty: it's mostly not hard, except when Larry sees a chick, except when he drinks too much.
Control: Purely self-imposed. The buttons work fine.
Learning Curve: This isn't the kind of curve you'll be worrying about.
Replayability: If you are 13-16 years of age, with a penis, plenty. Not much otherwise.
Will keep you up until (a.k.a Fun
Factor): Well we really put our foot in our mouth this one, didn't we? :)
Notable Features: Nearly full nudity in a video game that you can actually buy in a regular game store.
Fav. Character: Gosh, that's a hard one. Ehh, he said "hard".
Instant Classic: Nah - leave that to the originals.
Publisher: Vivendi
Developer: High Voltage Software
Release Date: 2004-10-05
Players: 1
Multiplayer: Larry can barely take care of himself!
ESRB: Mature for Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content AND Use of Alcohol. Who could have thunk it.
Target Audience: Fans of the original. All men of gameplaying, sexually active age.
Recommended For: 15 year old boys, and big enough fans of the original Larry series. Will work as a rental for players a good sense of humor looking to entertain themselves something a little different.
Not Recommended for: If you aren't a 15 year old boy, never played the original and are not enthused by the idea of a endless minigaming, you probably needn't bother. The original Larry series was actually quite accessible to women, but this game really isn't. Unless, of course, you are the kind of woman that likes boobies.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
| PlayerPlaza Games
| 
| 
