Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out - PC (1993)

Disk Cover

CD Cover

Leisure Suit Larry 6

Larry 6 is a return to form, as it's very similar to the first game, just drastically updated. The only goal? Run around and try to sleep with as many girls as possible. (Patti has been ditched completely, without so much as an explanation, which is probably for the best.) This time, Larry has won yet another contest from the dating show Stallions, which has earned him an all-expenses paid trip to La Costa Lotta, a super fancy health resort. Due to Larry's status as a non-paying guest, the employees aren't exactly the friendliest of people, but there are still plenty of places to visit, including a gym, a jazz bar, a pool (and accompanying bungee jumping activities), a rather nasty salad bar, a mud bath, a sauna, and a disused liposuction clinic. In most of these areas, you'll come across one of eight women, each of whom initially wants nothing to do with you, but will eventually come around, providing you can dig up the right items. The girls this time include Gammie, the front desk clerk whose hot upper body distracts from her rather large lower body; Cavaricchi, the bisexual aerobics instructor; Rose, the Spanish beauty; Merrily, a bungee jumping junkie who can only get aroused at great heights; Thunderbird, a rather scary weightlifter; Char, who spends most of the game in a mud bath; Burgundy, the saucy jazz singer; and Shablee, the hip makeup artist. Like the first Leisure Suit Larry game, the ultimate girl is found holed up in the penthouse - the depressed, despondent (and clothes-hating) Shamara. Apparently she can only find happiness with the assorted trinkets Larry ends up with during his adventures with the other women at La Costa Lotta. Of course, luck is rarely on Larry's side, and most of the girls are more intent on humiliating Larry than screwing him. (Do you know what a "High Colonic Treatment" is? Poor Larry doesn't.) However, even if Larry never quite gets what he wants, he is awarded a special item for each of the girls he "wins". Each of these items is necessary to win over Shamara, and thus the game. The original disk VGA version's interface uses the same fonts and menus as the older SCI0 games, in a bit of a nostalgic callback. Unlike the other SCI1 titles, which hide the icon selections at the top of the screen, the lower part is taken up by the icons, with quick access to your inventory. The icons are more or less the same as Larry 5, with the return of the ever-loved Zipper icon, but now the standard "Use" command has been divided into "Use" and "Pick Up". The SVGA version, only included on the CD release, changes up the interface a bit by enlarging the lower section and sticking in a text box, along with the character portraits, so the dialogue and messages no longer appear on the main screen. The inventory has been moved to the top, although the icons are rather small and a pain to see. The art style is a bit less cartoony than the previous game, but it still has a unique style. La Costa Lotta is a garishly designed resort, with lots of clashing, loud colors, and while the SVGA graphics are noticeably cleaner, it's still an assault on the eyes. The character sprites don't seem to have been redrawn, looking like they've been upscaled with a bit of added detail, so they look a little bit off too. However, the close-up portraits of the girls look remarkably better. This is also the first installment to feature voice acting, most of which is quite excellent. Larry is appropriately nerdy, with a nasally whine which has just the right dose of patheticness without being annoying, and the narrator is appropriately smarmy. The acting really adds a lot of personality to the girls, too, so they feel like more than just puzzles to overcome. Larry 6 is a marked improvement over many of the past games, just because the game world is so much richer. La Costa Lotta is a relatively huge place - it's actually quite easy to get lost when you first start, at least until you learn your way around - but at the same time, it's smaller than most other adventure games. There's more detail and character packed into each location, which is really what makes this game so rich. In general, the dialogue is better, descriptions are funnier, and the zipper icon is put to much better use than it ever had been before, even if it's mostly used to provoke goofy responses. Other than a few troublesome oversights, it's mostly impossible to get stuck without the proper items, and although there are death scenes, you can immediately reverse your actions, so they're mostly there just for fun. (Try unzipping yourself in front of the overtly gay towel attendant if you want to try playing for the other team, although it will prematurely end your journey.) Definitely one of the better games in the series. MP3s Download here Theme Song

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Comparison Screenshots

VGA	SVGA

Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love For Sail - PC (1997)

American Cover

Leisure Suit Larry 7

Leisure Suit Larry 7

You'd have to be naive to think that Larry TRULY got a happy ending with Shamara at the end of Leisure Suit Larry 6. She ditches him, just like all of the others, and leaves him to burn in her penthouse, which has been inadvertently set ablaze. After escaping, Larry decides to forget his worries by taking a cruise on a ship called the PMS Bouncy, leading to more debauchery. The opening segments don't really bode well for the game, since it steals elements from previous Larry games - the whole tied-up-and-abandoned theme from back in LSL1, and the whole cruise thing from LSL2. And yet, Love for Sail (originally named "Yank Her's Away" during development, amidst other ridiculous names) is one of the last "true" adventure game series that actually manages to go out with a bang, unlike other classic Sierra titles that just kinda petered out. Part of the reason for this is its change in art style. Love for Sail follows the path of King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride and Curse of Monkey Island by utilizing cartoony cel-style animation for all of its characters, completely dropping any pretense of reality from some of the prior games. It's really a shame that the point n' click genre started to die off as technology was catching up, because this is one of the best looking games in the genre. (It also came out before 3D came in and screwed things up. See also: Gabriel Knight 3 and Escape from Monkey Island.) Of course, compared to KQVII, though, Love for Sail is far more Tex Avery than Walt Disney. The voice acting is terrific, with the actors for Larry and the narrator reprising their roles, and it's the only game to feature a fully digitally streamed soundtrack. Also, much like its direct predecessor, it succeeds by sticking to its strengths - the chick macking. Technically, the goal of the game transcends merely picking up girls - this is a particular bizarre cruise liner, which runs a contest wherein men participate in a variety of competitions. The prize? A whole week spent with Captain Thygh, the ship's bombshell helmswoman. (There are also pinup posters of her hung up around the ship, as an incentive for contestants.) Some of these include competitions that rank you based on your skill at craps, horseshoes, cooking, bowling, and love making (measured by a sex machine, apparently.) Nearly all of the girls have porn-esque variations of movie star names, including Drew Baringmore, the nudist author; Jamie Lee Coitus, the artist; Dewmi Moore, who just loves a man who can gamble; Wydoncha and Nailmi Jugg, the mother/daughter country-western duo; Victorian Principles, the stuck up librarian who changes her tune once you give her a copy the "The Erotic Adventures of Hercules" (one of the many gags gently borrowed from The Simpsons); Annette Boning, the old mistress; and, of course, Captain Thygh. Also hanging around is the foul-mouthed pirate girl Peggie, who thankfully does not have any nude scenes. Naturally, there's no straightforward way to win any of these trials - you need to resort to creative mischief in order to beat the system. In order to win the "Best Dressed" competition, you need to get in good with Jaime Lee Coitus, the fashion designer, who will use Larry as her model, bringing leisure suits back in style, and thus (temporarily) making you the most suave dude on the block. Also, in this game, Larry's exploits with his conquests usually work out pretty well for him, as opposed to the blue balling from LSL 3 and 6 - it's just that his clothes end up getting destroyed in the process, and he always ends up in some awkward situation when trying to sneak back to his room. It's also actually possible to strike out with some of the women, like if you fail at the game of craps with Dewmi Moore, but getting with them isn't necessarily a requirement to winning the game. Keeping with the theme of the last few games, there's no way to get stuck, and no way to be killed either. Of course, it's also still pretty damn funny - what other game can you clear a crowd by eating a bunch of bean dip then ordering your onscreen avatar to fart? Truly classy. Once again, you're given free roam of most of the ship at the beginning of the game, and can instantly jump to any room with the help of a handy map. Your command icon is now a condom, which inflates whenever you can interact with something. The interface has been simplified to operate with a single icon - you can click anywhere on the screen to walk, but if you click on an object, a submenu pops up that allows you look at it, pick it up, use any of your inventory items on it, or otherwise interact with it. While most other games that adopted single icon systems tended to dumb down the game, LSL7 actually uses it to its benefit, since it's much easier to use items instead of cycling through your inventory. It also brings up context sensitive actions, depending on what you've clicked on. In an additional throwback to the older days, you can also type in a verb, if it's not listed. The dialogue segments have expanded quite a bit too, allowing you to talk about different subjects instead of just talking to them over and over. You can also type in your own subjects of conversation too. Other than the tutorial segment at the beginning of the game, you never really need to use the text parser, but it's necessary to unlock hidden scenes and other easter eggs. (The game also has an amusingly bizarre obsession with milking beavers, all thanks to the text parser.) And there are a lot of secrets. Some of the previous games snuck in a quick boob flash here and there if you were persistent, but Love for Sail has hidden nude scenes for all of the main girls. Some of these are pretty obvious, like "push"ing a pesky branch out of the way to get an eyeful of the nudist Drew Baringmore, but some others can be a bit obtuse. As such, it's quite a bit more graphic than the previous games, although not overwhelmingly so. Winning a girl will also unlock a wallpaper for use in Windows, although they're easy enough to find on your own if you ruffle through the game's files. There is an additional "Where's Dildo?" quest, where several striped, smiling dildos are hidden in the scenery. If you manage to find all of the easter eggs, score the full 1000 points, and pick out all 32 dildos, you get a quick bonus movie of Larry engaged with Captain Thygh. Although it's not terribly explicit, this secret movie was officially cited as the reason why Larry 7 did not appear on the 2006 compilation - even though it received an M rating from the ESRB originally, Vivendi felt this hidden scene would be enough to push it into AO territory. There are also a couple of other halfway clever devices, including the ability to insert a picture of yourself in the game, which shows up as a poster. (By default, it's a pic of Al Lowe.) The retail game also includes a scratch and sniff card - at various points in the game, the "CybersSniff 2000" pops up and asks you to scratch off a certain spot, in order to fully immerse you in the experience. The disc art is actually pretty hilarious, with the spindle hole being placed in the middle of Larry's crotch, who has a rather distressed look on his face. Love for Sail really is the epitome of the series - it looks fantastic, it's well written, has a bunch of hidden stuff to see and do, and sidesteps any of the frustrations of most adventure games. MP3s Download here Theme Song

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