Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards

Leisure Suit Larry is one of my favorite adventure games of all time. Certainly the best of the Sierra 3-D games in my opinion. It may not the most challenging game or have the deepest storyline, but what it lacks in depth, it makes up for in humor. Leisure Suit Larry is essentially an 80s PG-13 sex comedy in pixelated form.

The graphics, crude as they may be, are completely appropriate for the mood of the game. By keeping the imagery minimal, Larry’s dirtiness attains a level of cuteness that never comes across as anything but good-natured fun. My favorite moment is the disco dance scene which borrows heavily from the movie, Airplane!

This is one of the few Sierra games that I actually completed as a youngster, back before the days of the Internet. When I inevitably got stuck, I needed to use a hint book. I remember the hint book also included the setup to the dirty jokes’ punchlines that the barfly at Lefty’s keeps muttering (always followed by a “Har, har, har…”). Now that I do have access to walkthroughs and such, I may try to tackle the sequels. I got about halfway through Larry 2 before giving up.

Oh, and one last thing. The Lesuire Suit Larry theme song’what a great, catchy tune. You’ll be whistling it for days. I believe it was written by Al Lowe himself. I was very disappointed when, as a teenager, I saw Al Lowe on Name That Tune and there was no mention of his dirty-old-man video game designer career, just his musical background. Yawza, yawza, indeed.