By Christian Van Meurs on October 8th, 2004

The new game, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, shares a lot of traits with its adventure game roots but misses on some key elements that long-time fans are sure to miss. For starters, the game’s original creator, Al Lowe, was not involved in the making of this new game for reasons unknown (but it’s a sad story in itself - click HERE for information). Also, Vivendi Universal was apparently forced to close shop on the Sierra studio in Bellevue Washington in mid 2004, leaving developer High Voltage Software to pick up where they left off, wherever that was. And to add insult to injury, the star of the new game, Larry, is not the original Larry Laffer that we all know and love, but an entirely new character - Larry Lovage - the nephew of the former star (although Uncle Larry does make a cameo appearance). But despite what initially seems like insurmountable odds, the new game does have something to offer that none of the previous games ever had, and that of course is 3d boobies. And let’s face it - who doesn’t like 3d boobies, right?

MCL is, for all intents and purposes, a 3d version of the original adventure style games. Larry Lovage, a college reject with a big head and a nack for bad pickup lines, sets out on his mission to land a spot on the hit reality dating show "Swingles" that has invaded his campus, and get into as many girls’ panties as he can in the process. The setting for the game is a full-blown 3d college campus and surrounding cityscape, offering lots to see and even more to do. The game begins as Uncle Larry Laffer offers his nephew some tips on how to negotiate the game, interact with objects, and how to hit on girls. Hitting on girls requires that you successfully manage a couple of things: your confidence and your level of drunkenness. Certain girls will require a target level of confidence to hit on (and in some cases a certain outfit to be worn), and you can gain confidence by a variety of methods including playing various mini-games dotted around the game, getting drunk (duh) and even masturbating. Yes, masturbating, which actually plays out like Pong, only with a giant penis in the middle. Wait, did I just say penis? Yes friends, I hate to burst your booby bubble but this adult game, like its predecessors, gives the male member a proportionate amount of time in the spotlight. You’ve been warned.

So all I have to do to hit on girls successfully is get drunk right? Wrong. Getting drunk has its own negative effects, and here’s why. When starting a conversation with a girl, a small console appears at the bottom of the screen with a little sperm swimming along as objects are hurled from the right and then continue off the left-hand side of the screen, much like a traditional side-scrolling shooter. This is how you talk to women - guiding the little smiling sperm along as it triggers speech at key times and furthers the conversation.

Throughout the course of the game you will encounter a lot of different girls, each one with a new story to tell and a new rack to see. For each girl you successfully "score" with you are rewarded with special bonus points that you can spend to unlock goodies from the game’s extras menu. These items include concept art, naughtier versions of the game’s characters (read: different outfits), a cool 3d model viewer that lets you examine each of the game’s characters in 3d, and even a topless mode that removes the censor bars on everything above the belt; the bottom censors, sorry to say, are permanent in the U.S. version of the game. Also unlockable are various packs of loading screens, which at first seems like a complete waste of your hard-earned bonus bucks, but later prove to be invaluable as the game is absolutely plagued with loading screens. Want to walk through that door? 30 seconds of loading. Forget to buy an item at the store? 30 seconds of loading. Walking from one end of the campus to the other turns into an absolute chore, and towards the end of the game when I had all but memorized pixel by pixel each of the game’s loading screens, I wanted to tear my hair out. How a game with such relatively simple graphics can justify that much loading is beyond me.

Speaking of graphics, MCL does a pretty good job of conveying the virtual college life. The campus itself is nicely modeled and large enough that you can spend a good amount of time just walking around and exploring. The game’s style is very cartoonish and it comes off very well, despite the slight lack of polygons used in the character models. They don’t look bad at all, but there are some obvious polygon edges that detract a bit from the view. And considering the game’s style and the history of the series, I am quite surprised that the developers did not use cel shading; I think it would have been perfect. Still, it manages to capture that toon feel, so it’s not a big deal. Textures are very nice too. The audio end of things also turned out to be pretty good. All of the game’s speech is fully verbalized with better-than-average voice acting, and they did a good job matching a character’s looks to their voices too. It’s also pretty impressive to listen to the conversations unfold in real time without sounding like a bunch of short clips sewn together. MCL also makes good use of 5.1 surround sound. I just can’t get enough of walking up to the hacky sack guy in the quad, farting, and listening to him cuss me out through the back speakers as I run away laughing – priceless. There are also quite a few licensed music tracks in the game, giving it almost a college movie quality, with songs like Motley Crue’s “Girls” and Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy”.

Overall, I believe that the new Larry team has done the series justice, despite the odds that were stacked against them from the get-go. This new game really does feel like an extension of the PC series, from the wacky humor and voice acting all the way to the exploration aspect and gameplay. Fans of the series will probably be reluctant to like it, but I’m betting they will. Larry’s musical duet with his lesbian friend in the gay bar is an especially memorable moment and an instant classic. And if gamers can look past the excessive amount of loading and overall short length of the game, I think everyone will find at least some form of enjoyment with the title. I did, and I eagerly await the next installment, which hopefully won’t take another 8 years. Now how about that cel-shading?