Reviews// Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude

One of the most surprising things about Magna Cum Laude is that, despite being constructed almost entirely out of mini-games, it doesn’t offer any multiplayer antics. The nature of it would be ideal for a bunch of half-cut students to fire up after closing time, pitting chat-up skills against one another in a party-game frenzy. Instead, it’s a strictly one player affair which, frankly, seems like a missed opportunity. Like re-watching a tired old 80’s comedy, such as Animal House or Caddyshack, playing Leisure Suit Larry as a solitary or sober experience is actually quite depressing. The jokes aren’t earth-shatteringly witty and the gameplay holds little interest after an extended period of time. SPOnG has thoroughly enjoyed other mini-game based titles, such as Wario Ware, Bishi Bashi and the über-quirky Incredible Crisis all hold special places in our collective hearts, but Larry offers none of the breadth, variety or addictive value of these titles. Bearing in mind that such games have all appeared on inferior technology and retailed for less than half the cost of Magna Cum Laude, the cause for complaint is justified.

But it wouldn’t be fair to completely slate Magna Cum Laude through and through. It does represent a welcome departure from the normal dross that gets pumped out between the mega-titles of Q4. And as unusual dross, it does have its merits. Firstly, we can’t help but respect the complete non-consideration of standard video-game production values. It means that the storyline and unrepentant flashes of boob progress at their chosen pace, uninterrupted by ancillary things like gameplay. As such, Magna Cum Laude does have a more creative and endearing storyline than most, so if you are entertained by the tale told, there is a definite quality to the title. And for cheap testosterone-teasing thrills, there simply is no alternative.

Don’t get us wrong, Leisure Suit Larry is by no means erotic, it’s blatantly more Loaded than Lover’s Guide, but it does have boobs in, and the importance of that fact must not be underestimated. Even more excitingly, it also shows glimpses of ladies' down belows - unique to the PAL version of the game. The US version, hampered by the ultra-right-wing mores of the Bush Administration, was forced to plaster ‘Censored’ signs over the nether regions of the ladies’ anatomies, and although Australia has banned the game outright, us liberal/pervy Europeans are getting the full, dirty version - which is set to fully reveal this generation of consoles’ first digital vag. But unless you’re too young to purchase pornography, that might not be such a valuable claim to fame. Although we do still hold a torch for the exquisitely feminine form of Jessica Rabbit, generally speaking, cartoon nudity isn’t something we get excited about in a massive way. Otherwise we’d get ourselves a FM Marty Towns and a big stack of weird Japanese hentai titles.

Nevertheless, the main incentive to progress through LSL comes from the continual quest to see as much bare flesh as possible. By exploring the college campus and its surroundings, Larry can find secret tokens, which he can then take to the local secrets dealer to purchase all manner of unlockables. Of course, when we say all manner of unlockables, we mean ones relating to nakedness. You can acquire pictures of real-life lady models - starkers, and you can make some of the NPCs strip down to bare nakedness when you beat them in a mini-game. It is, however, a fairly vacuous attempt to extend the game’s longevity and exists mainly as an additional angle of curiosity.