Leisure Suit Larry

Ah, so many wasted hours on these games, trying to figure out the right sequence of events to get that poorly pixilated loser laid, but to be fair if I hadn't wasted my time on this I would have found something at least as dumb to waste it on (and, judging from past experience, probably even dumber). So you're asking yourself, what brought up this bout of video game nostalgia? The fact that the franchise is still alive and kicking.

The newest member of the Leisure Suit family was released yesterday. In case you haven't been following such things the franchise was first introduced in 1987 and carried through into the mid nineties, after which things kind of dropped off. Then in 2004 the first console version of the game was released, Magna Cum Laude; five years later we have Box Office Bust and from what I can tell the franchise has gone completely bust.

I haven't had a chance to play Box Office Bust yet but the reviews I'm seeing aren't positive, and to be honest this is what I was expecting. It was stated from the early stages of development that they were going to take a deviation from Magna Cum Laude, citing poor customer response. Well I don't know what those customers were thinking because I loved the game.

Which brings us to the real point today. Being that the Magna Cum Laude was cross-platformed I figured I'd try it on the Xbox but actually ended up playing it on the PC; I could claim it's because I wanted to maintain the PC legacy for this game, but it's actually because I managed to get a no-censor crack and therefore got all the nudity opened up. Ah, animated boobies, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I can't say I was enthralled with the game from the start but it did have a compelling story line, seeing more boobies, so I stuck with it. The game is actually classed as an adventure style but it really boils down to minigames, some of them make you money, some of them give you confidence, and some of the actually work to getting you laid. You play the original Larry's nephew, Larry, who is trying to get onto a dating gameshow, and in order to do so he must seduce a series of girls, each more difficult than the last, and produce trophy's to validate Larry's ability to play the show. Essentially simple and the games aren't backbreakingly difficult, but that's what I liked about it, it appealed to the casual gamer in me. I could get in and play a few minigames and then walk away, rarely getting frustrated over not being able to get past a certain point. Plus it kept me coming back because I wanted to see the next girl, for instance Bilzarbra: 

I'll try and provide a full review of Box Office Bust but in the meantime I would highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking to kill a few hours, although it's more rewarding if you don't have to worry about the censorship.