Leisure Suit Larry 5

Title           Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work
Game Type	Adventure
Players		1
Compatibility	All Amigas (1 Mb)
HD Installable  Yes
Company		Sierra (designed by Al Lowe)
Submission      Alkis Polyrakis Profiled Reviewer

Review
Larry Laffer is a star; no doubt about it. Surely you must have heard of
Pele even if you're not a football fan.. and I know you must have heard of
Michael Jordan even if you know nothing about basketball.. just like you
have heard of Elvis Presley even if you don't listen to any kind of music.
Just the same, you've heard of Larry even if you've never played an
adventure game in your life.

Larry was first conceived in 1980 in a text adventure called Softporn,
then brought back to life in 1987 in Leisure suit Larry in the land of the
lounge lizards. A hopelessly pathetic middle-age man stuck in the late
70s, constantly looking for some female company; the man every one of us
would hate to become. However, the game was a great success, probably
because of its subtle adult theme.

This is the fourth (yes, the fourth, not the fifth; I'll explain later)
game of the series, the last one ever released for the Amiga, and, sadly,
the worst of all.

Story
The story looks promising at first, I'll give them that. Larry is hired by
his new boss to videotape three girls who are auditioning to be on a show
called America's Sexiest Home Videos. Larry has to fly to Miami, New York,
and Atlantic City to find and videotape these three beauties. In the
meantime, Patti is hired by the FBI to go undercover and investigate two
criminals: Reverse Biaz and P.C. Hammer, who are illegally putting
subliminal messages into music records. You control both Larry and Patti,
but you have no choice as to when you gain control of them; the game
decides that for you.

What's the problem with the story? The (alleged) humour! Unlike previous
Larry episodes, this game is just not funny, period. I guarantee you that
even the most willing player in existence would have trouble finding more
than one or two situations that qualify for a smile. Furthermore, the two
different plots are both boring, and you will find yourself wondering how
did Larry become such a stud all of a sudden, as he doesn't seem to have
any trouble convincing women to have sex with him! Another problem is its
length.. the story (the game too, consequently) is too short!

Oh, and about this game being number 5 instead of number 4.. Larry looks
surprised in the beginning: "What am I doing here? Last thing I remember
was..". Some explanations are given later on, and Al Lowe (the programmer)
gave people several excuses some years later, however I believe everyone
can recognize it for what it really is: a cheap marketing trick.

Interface
Unlike previous Larry games, there is no text parser in Leisure Suit Larry
5. Instead, you use icons in order to interact with the game. The walk
icon will move your character around the screen, the look icon will give
you descriptions, the talk icon will make Larry or Patti engage in
conversations with other people, the hand icon will allow them to
interact with objects (open a door or pick up a key), and the fingers icon
is for picking up inventory items (if you are carrying one, the fingers
icon will be replaced by the object). The icons are displayed on the top
of the screen, you can either select them there or click your right mouse
button in order to cycle through them. It's a good and very user friendly
interface.

Graphics and Sound
Okay, you may call me biased but I have yet to enjoy the graphics of a
Sierra game. These guys never learned how to take advantage of the Amiga
chips. Sure, there are many pretty hand-drawn backgrounds and well-built
females, but graphics are only good when they do not affect the gameplay.
It is often difficult to distinguish some items from the background.. and
why is the text font such an eye sore? Not to mention how slow the game is
even on 2MB machines. I believe that most companies do better graphics
with 16 colors than Sierra does in 32.

On the other hand, the sound effects are more than adequate, and the music
is excellent. The scores were made by Emmy nominee and Hollywood composer
Craig Safan!

Puzzles
As I say in all my adventure reviews, that's what makes a game good or
bad. Well as you have probably guessed by now, the puzzles suck. Yeah
yeah, I know, "the puzzles suck" is not exactly an acceptable phrase for a
review, but I couldn't help myself. First of all, they are as dumb as they
get; they're supposed to make you laugh but they fail miserably. Second,
they are too obvious, which makes the game a piece of cake even for novice
gamers! I doubt anyone needed more than 15 hours to complete Leisure suit
Larry 5. I guess too many complained about the difficulty of Larry 2&3.

Summary
Don't touch this game with a 10-foot pole unless:
a) You're a masochist
b) See a)
c) You want to possess all Larry games
d) You're a masochist

Alphabetical list.