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

The Good
The first game of the Leisure Suit Larry series, In the Land of the Lounge Lizards, had quite a rough start. Many game stores refused to stock it due to little or no advertising, but in the end over 250,000 copies were sold. A year later, the game received an award by the Software Publishers Association. In it, Larry Laffer walked the streets of Lost Wages, looking for the girl of his dreams. He eventually set his eyes on Eve, a young woman who he had a one-night stand with.

Larry thought that if you are in love with another woman, the natural thing to do is move in with her. But Larry thought wrong, and Eve immediately kicks him out. (I wouldn't be surprised if this happened in real life. It would be rude to just move in without asking for permission.) Meanwhile, a tropical island populated by beautiful native women is under threat from disappearing, and an evil doctor, by the name of Nonookee, is using its volcano to do something with Los Angeles, and it isn't pretty at all.

The first thing I saw was the game's copy-protection screen, where the game asks you to enter the phone number of the girl that appears. Get it wrong, and you are dumped back to the DOS prompt, similar to what happens in King's Quest IV. The girl in each photo is not quite as attractive as the ones you meet in the actual game. You can cheat by entering Al Lowe's birthday, which is a great way if you don't want to see the introduction again before you have a chance to load a saved game.

A big plus for the game is its improved engine, capable of the bigger resolution of 320x200. I could see from the introduction that Larry is less chunky and the quality of the graphics overall has improved. Los Angeles, your starting point, looks stunning. You can go into the different buildings and check out various sites like Disneyland, downtown LA, movie studio, and one of those big sky-rise apartments Larry ought to live in. Sound cards are introduced in a Larry game for the first time, offering users the option of using the Adlib, Roland MT-32, or the Game Blaster. The introduction itself sounds amazing, especially coming from the Roland. But the highlight is the jungle on the tropical resort.

Larry's adventures take you through Los Angeles and on a boat, tropical resort, a plane, and Nontoonyt Island itself. Highlights include participating in a dating show and a lottery show, as well as the fantastic ending, which I'm not going to tell you about. For the first half of the game, looking at women shows you a picture of what they look like. (My favorite is the hot Italian from Molto Lira.) Speaking of women, there are a few that you shouldn't be messing with, but if you do, you will be awarded with a nice death scene. It's as if it comes straight from a James Bond movie, except that it is an epic fail!

There is some humor in the game, wherever you go. On the tropical resort, for example, Larry has to wait his turn while couples, dressed in exactly the same outfits and have stupid names, are seated, and Larry doesn't look very happy about it. Also, you can choose to do a very bad thing with the hotel maid and get killed for it, but it is funny what happens.

The Bad
There are a few things I don't like about the game is some of the features. The trite phrase, for example, lets you make up a sentence and nearly every character you meet says it. Although it is fun, it's also boring. You can adjust the game's filth level, but this seems to be useless. Having Larry walking through the jungle in a non-interactive scene is pointless, and it takes five minutes for him to get out. Finally, unlike LSL1, if you forgot to do one thing before proceeding to the next location, you cannot go back and fix it. You'll have no choice but to load your last save.

The Bottom Line
LSL2 is more advanced than the original, due to the use of Sierra's new SCI engine which boasts a higher resolution, fancier graphics, mouse support, and support for common sound cards of the time. The game follows on from the original, and there is more to do besides chasing women everywhere you go. You must also stop an evil doctor from destroying Los Angeles. There is not much humor in the game, except for the situations I outlined above. However, there are some useless features such as the filth level and the trite phrase, as well as the pointless trek through the jungle. If you enjoyed playing the original game, then you should enjoy this one.