Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (In Several Wrong Places)

The Good
Outstanding storyline -- good job working a spy story in with Larry's normal pursuits. Puzzles that aren't too easy and aren't too hard. Decent graphics and sound. And... it's gosh darn funny. So many hilarious ways to die!

The Bad
Can't think of much... there are some parts where time (i.e. real-time) is a factor, and that can be kind of annoying if you're stuck somewhere.

The Bottom Line
Lots of fun... sort of a twisted version of "Forrest Gump".

The Good
Leisure Suit Larry has always thrived on being a satire of the dating and sex obsessed society that we live in, and while in many ways that society has changed dramatically since those days (and especially in the past 10 years as of writing this review) many of the tropes and the jokes found in the game still ring true today. The game starts with Larry who thought he has found love in the previous game with Eve, who he made passionate love with in the previous game. Only he has (as the game title loves to remind us) sought love in the wrong place. As Eve considered the encounter a one-night stand and barely even remembers Larry and demands that he leaves or else.

Thus, Larry is all alone in Los Angeles, which is an interesting departure from the previous game, which took place in the fictional city of Lost Wages (a clear reference to Las Vegas). Through sheer luck and… dubious moral methods, Larry comes into a large amount of money by winning (what would be then) the biggest lottery in history, and ends up getting accidentally dragged to what is potentially the funniest parody of a dating show ever made.

The satirical display of even the simplest aspects of life like shopping at a convenience store or a pharmacy is taken to a ludicrous level. The full shallowness of many people in society taken to absurd levels (the restaurant section on the island resort is taken to such an extreme that I still consider it one of the finest examples of snobbery ever shown in a video game).

The jokes and incredibly poor attempts at flirting by Larry have only held up even more today as shown in the past few decades by the rise of dating sites and certain online communities that try (and fail hilariously) at dating. Even some of the jokes that might rub people the wrong way still hold up as it openly mocks such practices (spoilers! I’m referring to the airline joke where Larry is asked if he wants ‘stewardess groping privileges’ which only riles Larry up even more…)

But the jokes and the satire are really the only good points of the game, however…

The Bad
For all its satire of society and catchy zingers, the game unfortunately is the weakest of the Leisure Suit Larry games. The reason for this is the story. Not so much the story itself mind you, but how it is presented.

In 1990 Graham Nelson wrote ‘The Craft of Adventure’, a guide on making adventure games of the era. While dated it does still offer great advice to game developers today, notably where it lists the Bill of Player’s Rights (updated somewhat in 2013 by Laralyn McWilliams at her blog). Two of the rights listed are that the player should be able to win without knowledge of the future or the benefit of past lives.

You might say that Sierra is quite notorious for its dead-end situations and rather bizarre puzzles (I’m looking at you, Gold Rush!) but Leisure Suit Larry 2 is actually a far worse offender than any other Sierra game I have ever seen and I’m going to explain why (spoilers ahead).

While the game starts out normal enough, Larry wins the lottery because he lies about the number on his ticket and for some reason, the entirety of the studio doesn’t bother to check what number he actually has on his lottery ticket, they just let him win the million dollar a year for life without any questions. This is actually fine, both in-universe and from a story telling perspective, but that’s where it ends.

The story really starts when Larry, through a hilarious coincidence, gets an instrument containing a top-secret microfilm that the villain wants to hand over to the KGB. The KGB then notice this and decide to go after Larry and pretty much the entirety of the game is Larry trying to evade the KGB and Dr. Nontoonkee’s flunkies.

So where is the problem? Larry has absolutely no idea he is being chased by anyone. He does not understand the significance of the instrument he has due to the language barrier between him and the woman at the music store, and the game goes out of its way to say that he did not notice the KGB agent following him. Quite simply there is no reason for him to want to go on the various hijinks that he did in order to evade Dr. Nontoonkee’s flunkies or the KGB or even know they’re after him.

During multiple sections in the game, Larry is approached by multiple very beautiful women who express clear interest in him, and the only reason why he is not captured is because Larry doesn’t follow them. Since he has no way of knowing he is being pursued, this is actually very out of character for Larry, who frequently tries to get with women whom he has no chance at all with. Why would he just turn away women who seem like they really want him?

In one part of the game, there is a very elaborate disguise that Larry must obtain that he cannot know he needs unless Larry has been captured multiple times by the KGB at the beach. Again. Not only is it really not possible to know without dying, but there is no way Larry could possibly have known. Because there are no hints at all in the game about what he must do to evade them.

If you played the game without dying (usually by looking at a walkthrough and knowing exactly what to do), the flow of the plot almost seems that Larry just wants to run away from nothing in particular since he would not know who is after him. This is the major problem of the story. It only makes sense towards the absolute end when Larry wants to save the villagers because… well, he met the love of his life and wants to get married. It makes sense for him then and there to want to stop Dr. Nontoonkee, but before that he would have absolutely no idea who the guy is.

Moreover, what happened to the instrument, the microfilm, and the KGB pursuit is never resolved. This is a major plot hole since even though the evil doctor is defeated, the microfilm that the KGB wants is still intact. Why would it be a happy ending on the island when Larry is still being pursued by one of the most effective and dangerous intelligence agencies in the world?

The jokes were funny, but the game’s plot had many issues that needed resolving. Perhaps a fan remake might address them?

The Bottom Line
If you can get past the plot holes, the game is still really funny, and seeing Larry go through increasingly ludicrous situations just never gets old.

The Good
Looking for Love is a somewhat unusual entry in the series depicting the misadventures of a lonely middle-aged guy with only one thing on his mind: becoming less lonely in his sex life. The first game introduced a template that most of its sequels would follow: walk around, meet women, and find a way to seduce them (well, actually, to try and spectacularly fail). Looking for Love, however, is different: there are no developed female characters and no methodical seduction. Instead, the game is more similar in spirit to Space Quest - it is a more linear, but significantly more varied and exciting journey with danger lurking everywhere.

Diversity is indeed the most appealing side of this game. During the course of your adventure, you'll outsmart KGB agents, figure out how to survive on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, participate in a TV show, shave legs and wear bras, dive into pools, fight snakes, walk through a swamp, parachute from a plane, detonate a bomb, and save a whole nation from an evil doctor with the sinister name Nonookee. This is by far the most event-heavy installment in the series, and the variety of scenes and situations it presents is very impressive. You never know where you are going to be taken next, and your curiosity is sustained by the anticipation of an upcoming environment sharply contrasting with the previous one.

Though the game does like to abruptly take you to new places and seal off previously visited areas, most locations still allow considerable exploration. In fact, the streamlined nature of the game creates a false impression of being smaller than its predecessor. In reality, it has many more locations - it's just that we get less attached to them because once they are gone, they are gone for good. Still, only the opening part in Los Angeles consists of more unique screens than the entire playground of the first game; later, you are taken to such interesting places as a cruise ship and various civilized outposts in the middle of a thick jungle. There is a great mixture of urban areas, exotic wilderness, and indoor environments such as shops, a restaurant, an airport, etc.

There isn't that much to do in every given area, but that doesn't mean the game is too easy. You'll spend much of your time figuring out how to avoid the countless lethal situations the game keeps throwing at you. I realize that a lot of people hate this element in Sierra games, and I admit that this particular game goes overboard with it. However, I like adventure games with potential danger, games that do not allow you to relax and try out any combinations of commands with impunity. Death is a gameplay-related, atmosphere-enhancing factor increasing suspense and contributing to the realism of presented situations; figuring out how to avoid it is a perfectly valid substitute for real puzzles in a game that basically consists of lethal events.

These events are not just there to artificially expand the length of the game: they are logically (at least for a comedy) dictated by the plot, which drives the game forward with much more intensity than Larry's first adventure - or any other installment in the series, for that matter. The whole game is a mad journey through a kaleidoscope of areas as you are trying to escape from omnipresent KGB agents and ferocious spies of the malevolent doctor. It actually feels more natural and justified to die at the hands of a sexy secret agent posing as a harmless hotel maid than cruelly perish attempting to cross a completely empty street.

One might argue that the soul of a Larry game is lacking here, that all these - admittedly exciting - adventures and hazards have next to nothing to do with the clumsy attempts at sexual gratification the series has been standing for. There is, however, one very important recurrent element that is always present in this game: the humor. Looking for Love is actually funnier than Lounge Lizards. Al Lowe's wit is more biting, and the extended, text-heavy cutscenes allow more focus on the humorous content than before. Rather than just constantly laughing at Larry (though there is plenty of that, too), the script contains such pearls as the TV dating show, an abracadabra conversation in fake Spanish, hilarious dialogue at the airport ticket counter, and more. The game also has elaborately drawn, tasteful visual gags, such as picking up a huge cup in the convenience store, popping out in unexpected places in the jungle, etc. Overall, this comedy feels fresh, energetic, and varied enough to include denigrating self-references, bits of sexual wordplay, black humor, and witty, ironic observations commenting on familiar occurrences in everyday life.

The Bad
Those who can't stand Sierra adventures often name excessive death scenarios and many ways to get irrevocably stuck in those games as the chief reason for their dislike. In reality, those claims aren't even true in quite a few Sierra games - and in most other cases, they are exaggerated. That is, except when they are applied to Looking for Love.

Undeniably, this is the single most lethal, most dead-end-heavy adventure in the history of the company. Earlier Sierra games may have presented unpleasant situations, but Looking for Love goes way over the top. There are locations where you can perish at every corner, and plenty of possibilities to get stuck. Much of the gameplay is about dying, restoring, trying again, dying again, restoring again, and figuring out you have to restore an earlier saved game because you probably forgot something. In fact, there are very few real puzzles in the game, and the ones that are there are elementary; but what makes the game unnecessarily hard is the fact you have to keep tons of saved games in every location just because important items are everywhere and you constantly travel from place to place without ever coming back.

There is, for example, one "puzzle" (in the airport) that actually requires you to try something and die from it in order to find out a hidden item. There is no other way to solve it other than by getting killed, restoring, and procuring an item you learned about only because you previously died. It is not as difficult to figure out as it sounds, but it almost feels like cheating. While this is probably the most blatant example, there are several others that make as little sense. Unfortunately, the game also loves preventing you from accessing earlier areas, sometimes literally forcing you to save on every screen just to ensure you'll be able to complete it.

The Bottom Line
Looking for Love can draw a lot of hate for being the quintessential demonstration of Sierra's most maligned design flaws. And yet, I'd take this nerve-wrecking, tense experience over some of those overly safe cases the adventure genre eventually started to prefer. Great variety of locations, plenty of suspense, dramatic situations at every corner, imaginative situations, and brisk humor make this unusual escapade of the lovable loser an essential contribution to the company's library.