The 80s Club

As an 80’s child, one of the games that left the biggest impression on me was the Leisure Suit Larry series. On my old XT with the EGA monitor as a 13 year old, Leisure Suit Larry was the naughtiest thing I’d ever done, and of course it was addictive. Back in those days the “reality” of the porn was nothing compared to some of the more recent reincarnations (the latest of which was banned in Australia). The goal was 222 points, and you did this by interacting at various levels.

From Wikipedia:

“The “Larry” games were one of Sierra’s most popular game series during the genre’s heydays. As such, they remain well-known among fans of the type today. The series stands out among Sierra’s catalog in that they are the only games the company produced that contain significant sexual themes and nudity.

In general, the games follow Larry’s escapades as he attempts (and mostly fails) to convince a variety of young nubile women (rendered with increasing sophistication throughout the series) to have sex with him. A common link between the games are Larry’s explorations of luxurious and cosmopolitan hotels, ships, beaches, resorts, and more commonly, casinos. One of Larry’s trademarks is his manner of introducing himself: “Hi, my name is Larry; Larry Laffer.”

Because of the nature of the games, the first and third episodes of the series featured an age verification system, which consisted of a series of questions to which the authors reasoned only adults would know the answer. This frustrated some non-American gamers, and the multiple-choice questions did little to deter adolescents with some patience and a notepad. (The verification system could be skipped by pressing Alt-X in episode one, or Ctrl-Alt-X in episode three.)”

Of course the Age Verification was a classic. It generally related to American things, so for us Australian’s it was pot luck, but we always managed to get through it.

Leisure Suit Larry 3 I can particularly remember because of the Island Maze. I’m not sure if I ever finished it. It was the last Larry release of the 1980’s and it took the genre to a whole new level with great EGA graphics.

I’ve not played a Leisure Suit Larry game since then, and I’d hate to think what they are like now, but I’m happy remembering poor old Larry the way he was.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 4th, 2006 at 3:52 am and is filed under Gnarly Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.