Leisure Suit Larry III: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals

The Good
No, the question mark at the end of the one-liner is not a mistake, but the result depending on well well the player goes at the quiz at the beginning of this game. I will get to the quiz at the moment. Like the first game in the series, this third incarnation is about Larry associating with attractive women who happen to have interesting careers.

In Leisure Suit Larry 2, the polyester dork outsmarted KGB agents that were trying to get a "onklunk" he was carrying and saved a tropical island from an evil doctor. He also met a sexy native girl who happens to marry and make love to her afterwards. The third game sees the island he saves get terraformed into a resort which is half-populated by birds (and I'm not talking about the ones who are capable of flying). Not everything is going well with Larry. He finds out that his wife dumps him for a lesbian and he is fired by his employer for being too slack. But despite this double-whammy, Larry vows to try his luck once again.

Before you have the chance to do anything in the game, you are asked your age followed by a series of questions that normally an adult would know. How raunchier the game gets depends on hell well you do with the questions. A neat feature is the postcard on the left in which the girl in it takes off her black swimsuit piece by piece every time you get a question correct; and when she is completely naked, the game is set at the raunchiest level. Anyone smart enough will find a way to bypass these questions.

LSL3 is the first Larry game to feature more than one protagonist. You also play as Passionate Patti, who Larry briefly meets at the end of Larry 2. I liked playing as Patti, because I think that the things you do with her are quite interesting. In the first half of the game, Larry has to speak with a number of birds and must give them something they really want; and only then will they "express their appreciation" (ie: sex). In the second half, Patti has to find her lover who left her after a night of hedonistic bliss.

The sex scenes are quite graphic, even if the game is set at its less raunchiest level. Unlike the first game, there is no censored bar covering the two people. I last played this game at the 'Rather Risque' level, and when Larry has sex with the lawyer, you see him actually thrust into her. These sex scenes often lead to embarrassing situations ranging from Larry's "case of the crabs" to the breaking down of the tanning machine. I found Larry's incident with the lawyer very amusing.

The text parser is very funny. If you type something that it doesn't understand, it will get angry, usually displaying things like "Oh yeah! Well, [command] this" or "I got your [command] right here." Every action you perform in the game will often result in hilarious dialog boxes, which would be even more hilarious if Neil Ross read them.

The graphics are quite colorful, and I enjoyed walking around the resort's jungles as much as I enjoyed the later part. The music sounds excellent as well, and one of the tunes I remember very well is in Patti's penthouse where she just got up the next morning. I also remember the tune that plays when you are walking around outside as Larry.

The Bad
People who have a fast computer may have trouble with some parts of the game, notably concerning the showgirl and the gym equipment at Fat City. Before the invention of DOSBox, the only way to avoid this is to use software that slow your CPU down.

Why is there so much copy protection in the game? You need to consult your manual if you want to see a show, then consult it again to gain access to someone's belongings, then again to get through the bamboo maze. That's three times, but imagine if you are playing some other game and you need to consult its manual about twenty times, you would refuse to play the game.

The Bottom Line
In my opinion, Leisure Suit Larry 3 must be the dirtiest game of the series, as it contains graphic sex scenes, nudity, and sexually-explicit dialogue. And buy playing this game, there is one thing I learned about Larry: he's a loser, and any attempts by him to have sex with women he happens to lay eyes on will result in him being a turn-off.

Putting the over-the-top copy protection aside, LSL3 has great graphics and sound, and there are lines of amusing dialogue all throughout the game. It is also the first Larry game to feature two protagonists, something that is repeated in the fifth game.

I read somewhere that LSL3 was meant to be the end of the trilogy, and that is why we never saw a LSL4.

The Good
The storyline and dialog in this game are among the best in animated adventure games. I mean, Larry's I & II were great fun and had excellent puzzles, but PPPPP has the sort of plot that really got me involved - I actually enjoyed the story as much as the gameplay. What with the excellent soundtrack (this was the first game I could try my brand new SB 2.0 on) and hi-res graphics this was top-notch technically as well as adventure-wise. Though the game is reasonably large (eleven floppies as I recall?), it holds together pretty well, and I never experienced a dull moment with it.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the Sierra way of doing hi-res EGA graphics was to use a lot of color rasters rather than using solid colors, which looked reasonably good back when the game was released but really gets on my nerves today. Also, most older Sierra games suffer from the sudden-death syndrome that can really drive a person used to Lucasfilm games mad (though this didn't bother me at the time).

The biggest bug (it must be a programming error, no one would implement it in an adventure game on purpose) in the game is the arcade sequence, where Patti has to ride a log on a river, avoiding all sorts of nasty obstascles. Its about as much fun as having your teeth bashed in with bricks, in my opinion. The maze I can live with, if Adventure had one or two, why shouldn't other adventure games? (Besides, the manual includes a walk-through of the maze, if you can find it.)

Oh yeah, installing the game off floppies was a real pain...

The Bottom Line
A funny and involving animated adventure game with loads to play and pretty logical puzzles. Not really all that raunchy, but does include animated sexual intercourse (in small 16-colour graphics), so its more like Larry I than the puzzle- and humour-oriented Larry II in that sense. One of the most enjoyable "old" Sierra games.

The Good
I'm not the kind of man who likes to play classic graphic adventure games. I wish I wasn't but I find watching someone who is trying his/her best to follow the scenario much more appealing than playing it by myself (at least my elder brother and some of my friends give more of themselves when playing these games; I never managed unfortunately, ever!). But wouldn't it be great if you had the chance to watch, for example LucasArt's "The Secret of Monkey Island" or "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"? I could watch them over and over and over again! As a movie buff I can honestly say that watching a good adventure game may sometimes become a more effective experience than watching a good movie (even if it is based on that movie and that was Indy's last crusade! :)

Well, I would be really very happy if I had watched Larry Laffer's third adventure. Maybe it was Al Lowe's "another humorous, harmless 3-D animated endeavor for adults" (I don't like his humor or Larry character much however he sometimes could create some nice snapshots) but what I liked most in the game was its outstanding atmosphere that set the scenes. You really can't help but admire Roger Hardy and William D. Skirvin's excellent piece of pixel art or Mike Dana's GREAT musical score. From the very beginning (lovely vista point) you already love their work.

I'm not inside the story much but in all of Larry adventures, to me, it was Larry's best adventure. From the jungle island to the amazon cannibal women, mad scientists to secret laboratories nearly all ideas were formed very well. The switching role with Patti was really fun and a nice change to see the story from another point of view...

I also liked the manual the game comes with. Different from an ordinary game manual its manual was designed like a guide to the island where you can find many absurd staff. Besides, the illustration William Eaken had created for "the Punk Flamingo Disco" was simply incredible, "dance your grass off at the disco in the beautiful downtown Nontoonyt Mall"!

The Bad
Well, hmm, let me think! Maybe "Polyester Patty in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals" was a better title. No! I thought again! It isn't. When I hear "Polyester" I always remember John Waters' movie of the same name. You know? Anyway, never mind. I reckon...

The Bottom Line
Even if you didn't play any Larry adventure before, this third part would be a perfect beginning. Yeah, it's time to meet Leisure Suit Larry and Passionate Patti!