Replay Games Acquires Leisure Suit Larry, Remakes 'n Sequels En Route

Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, and Space Quest would all be great with new art in HD, but the best Sierra adventure game will always be Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. It blows everything else in the genre away and really deserves an HD remake.

The art style is cool, but let's be real here and just admit that nobody really cares about Leisure Suit Larry.

Oh cool! Man that screenshot of LSL1 with the art style of LSL7 looks great. I also hope the sequel is LSL8: Lust in Space, like it was supposed to be in the late 90's. If Al Lowe's on board, I might have to become 12 years old again to enjoy this. Quick, where's that magical body swapping skull I got from the pawn shop?
 
Oh and I hope they got Jan Rabson to voice Larry Laffer again instead of that new asshole from the 3D games. And it wouldn't be a LSL game if Neil Ross wasn't voicing the narrator as well. It's gonna suck when these get cancelled.
 
edit: Also, as per usual, Patrick screwed up some facts. The first LSL was itself a 'remake' of a text-only adventure game called Softporn. This would be the third remake of LSL1.

Love for Sail was the only LSL game I played a bunch, only because I found it hidden on my dad's computer. He probably wouldn't have approved at the time.

If distributed digitally, how will I get my cyber sniff 2000 scratch n sniff card?

@Video_Game_King said:

Does anybody else keep reading Replay as Rapelay? (It would certainly make sense, given the context.)

Just from the article title, I was thinking it would be more appropriate if the publisher was Rapelay Games. It's not healthy to have Rapelay on the mind like this...

This is the best video game news that I've heard all year. If this works out well, maybe I'll finally get the Freddy Pharkas sequel that I've been waiting almost twenty years for.

This is BANGIN' news!

@Klei: Monkey Island 1 and 2 did come back with Special Editions and Telltale games did make a new Monkey Island series as well. I'm sure fans like myself would love to see LucasArts bring back there old point and click adventure games to this generation, this news is all from a classic Sierra title. =)

Alright now bring back: The Adventures of Willy Beamish and The Space Quest Series.

The first game was alright, but I was always partial to the second game. I'd totally buy these remakes and play them again if they were priced reasonably... maybe $5-$10 each?

@Du2andal said:

@President_Barackbar said:

Is the series even RELEVANT anymore? Are there really people who are going to go "fuck yes another Leisure Suit Larry game!?"

Upon seeing this news, I pretty much said exactly that.

Fuck yes another Leisure Suit Larry game!

Although I did enjoy Magna Cum Laude more as far as humor went (Lowe's humor skews more corny/cheesy as opposed to dirty/profane), the minigames were pretty attrocious and took away from what made the series great to begin with. The worst offenders were the stupid little sperm-steering minigames they used for conversations which got way too difficult later in the game causing you to pay way too much attention to that and forcing you to ignore the at times hilarious dialogue. It also penalized you for failing and saying some of the funniest things in the game, or worse completely covered up lines of dialogue in rapid belching and fart noises.

I'm a little annoyed they're going to remake Larry 1 first, which is still perfectly playable (I think they remade it after LSL6). LSL3 and especially LSL2 are almost entirely unplayable at this point. Still, as long as Box Office Bust isn't the corpse-raping end for this classic franchise, I'm a happy, happy camper.

Leisure Suit Larry in 2011 is only slightly more relevant than Custer's Revenge. I replayed LSL5 sometime like two or three years ago, and the whole thing just made me sad. A fresh coat of paint isn't going to make these games worth playing. They deserve to stay in the past, where they will still be remembered with a chuckle and a smirk.

Remind me to make Ajayraz play all of these then blog about it.

Just crazy enough to work?

I'll buy these for the same reason I brought the Monkey Island remakes. I've always had a soft spot for the series as it was the first adventure game series I played.

I'm not sure if it'll hold up but I'm interested to see if the game feels different through my now adult eyes.

Soapy tits in HD! Well, actually since it's coming out for consoles that will probably be censored and I don't think Apple will allow it. I guess if your not God of War no bare breasts for you!

@onan: Huh, so LSL fans DO still exist, how about that.

Cool.

Ken sent me...

BEST NEWS of the year!! Yeah!

I hope it's well animated, as good or better than LSL7. I'm fearing a cheap flahs-like budget remake...

OK, Al Lowe was the guy behind the original Larry games.

Replay Games is run by Paul Trowe. There is NO Rowe!

Just thought you should Knowe...

B.

im not ashamed of it, i like these games when i was younger but when al lowe left they became compleatly unbareable i often refer to box office bust as the worst game i have evert played and i have played first year student projects. al lowe comes back it might MIGHT give me reason to give it another chance

@Alex said:

This seems roughly as necessary as acquiring the Herpes Simplex Virus.

That's an awful sentence and was about as necessary as...fuck it, there's no way I could write anything as sophomoric as that.

Of all the old Sierra games that could be remade, they had to pick Leisure Suit Larry? Really? Why? The game gives off a vibe like some fat guy reading Playboys and smoking a cigar. He thinks he's this cool guy, but we all know he's a perv. Back in the 80s, when porn was ... different, and less accessible, LSL made a kind of sense. But nowadays it just looks creepy. I've got nothing against adult games, and LSL was (god, I don't want to say it) seminal in the genre, but it simply does not need to be remade. Rebooted? Maybe. Actually, no.

Keep it exactly the same just with new sprites and ill be happy.

LSL was fun, but I'd rather there be new QFG games. The couple who was the driving force behind them is still writing QFG related stuff on a board they created, but I'd really love to see someone hire them/work with them to make a game or games in that vein.

The VGA version of the first game holds up surprisingly well.
That HD screenshot looks pretty slick though.

Can't be any worse than the last few LL games.

Really nice news tbh. Even though Larry was never my favorite Sierra game they are still quite enjoyable. Please rescue more IPs from the Activision horror house, Police Quest and Space Quest.

@Parkingtigers said:

@JazGalaxy said:

the problem with adventure games is that they've forgotten what made adventure games fun in the first place.

They "evolved" with gimmicks and aping whatever trend was sold the most units a few months previous, and as a result, people stopped playing them.

The genre needs to find the fun again, which, generally speaking, means doing away with the computer pointing out objects to interact with (as a favor to you), pointing out where to go (as a favor to you), and telling you how to solve all it's problems. (as a favor to you.)

I disagree with this. I used to tout adventure games as one of my favourite genres back in the day. I must have played a ton of them, but I didn't finish them all. The problem with most adventure games was that they relied on a single solution to each problem, and if you couldn't work out that solution then it just turned into an exercise in pixel hunting, using every command on every item, and every item on every character. Far too many times I just got stopped cold by an obtuse puzzle.

I try and play them still now, every once in a while. They can still be satisfying, solving a tricky puzzle is always rewarding. I just don't have the patience to try and second-guess everything the designers put in, and the temptation to check an online guide is hard to resist. I actually applaud the current trend of putting hints into the games, that way a clue can be given without using an external source and without spoiling a later puzzle by accident.

My favourite of the modern adventures was Stacking. The puzzles weren't too difficult, and they had multiple solutions. You can burn through the main story without too much difficulty as usually one of the solutions to each puzzle should be obvious to every player. Finding them all is there as an optional challenge for those that want it, and there is a robust hints system to help out if you can't crack them all yourself. I think that is probably the best balance of challenge and player satisfaction.

Younger players won't even realise what a pain it was back in the day to get stuck on an adventure game. No GameFAQs, no YouTube walkthroughs, no online forums ... you had to catch the walkthrough in a gaming magazine or be stuck on a puzzle forever.

Well I think it's more complicated than this.

When I was in school there was a certain kind of professor I always hated, and that's teachers who hear that they need to ask questions of their students and so, feeling it necessary, would simply make a statement and leave a word out. then they would prompt the students to fill in the blank. It wasn't a question that prompted any kind of mental engagement, it was just a tiny game of "guess which word I'm thinking".

These were BAD TEACHERS.

There are a lot of badly made adventure games. Many of them were even popular. But essentially they were just stories written from beginning to end, and at certain points, they kind of removed an action and asked the player to manually complete that task. It's obtuse, it's not gameplay and it's not fun. The oldest and best adventure games, like Kings Quest, didn't feature this kind of gameplay. They were actually much more evocative of newer styled Sandbox games than they are modern adventure games.

I absolutely believe new adventure games should grow with the technology that is now afforded to them, but I don't think that what people like Telltale are doing is the answer in any way.

As for being stuck, developers need to re-learn how to make being stuck, fun. Being stuck is frustrating and annoying when you're entire progress through the game is barred by your not being able to complete the link in the chain that gets the story moving again. But being stuck is fun when you have many places to go and multiple fronts on which to be solving problems. But, again, this is is because the best adventure games were much more open-world and non-linear than what passes for adventure games these days.

@JazGalaxy: That's all well and good, but I don't remember being stuck to have ever been fun. Getting unstuck, that sense of relief when I finally found the correct step forward, now that was fun. All too often the solution was brute-forced rather than deduced. I don't know, I think adventure games are just a hangover from a past time. The main reason that I played them back then, and this is probably true for others as well, is that they were the only games that were telling a coherent narrative. Adventures were an animated book come to life, and the actions of the player determined whether or not you got the next part of the story in a timely manner.

I think King's Quest is perhaps a bad example to give of an adventure game to go back to. I only played on of them to completion (VI possibly), but I do remember them being notorious for being literally unfinishable if you didn't pick up a certain item earlier in the game. That's certainly not fun.

I still want to like adventures, but maybe it is me that grew out of them. The first Monkey Island has aged terribly, and the obtuse puzzles that you mention are far too common in all sorts of games still. I loved the non-verbal storytelling of Machinarium for example, but far too many puzzles just stopped me in my tracks. Now in a skill-based game I'll happily man up and try to suck less until I beat it (or it beats me), but I live in the future now, and if I find a puzzle that stops me I know that 30 seconds on the internet and I can find a way around it. I try to restrain myself, to figure it out the old-fashioned way ... the world has changed though, games have moved on, and sitting for an hour scratching my head and trying different combos of items and background scenery just feels like an hour when I could actually be doing something more worthwhile.

This all sounds a bit negative perhaps, but I rejoice in the fact that many genres of games now have decent storytelling, and often some kind of puzzle elements and mysteries that must be solved. I think what really happened is that the good bits of adventures were folded into other games, leaving the genre kind of unnecessary.

One of my fondest games of all time (most likely due to my age when I first played the EGA original), and not just for the subject matter. Probably the first "open world" game experience I had, completely unparalleled in that aspect by games other companies (including Lucasarts imo) were making at the time. Wanna have sex with the hooker? Sure. Do you use protection, or just go at it bareback? Do you pay for the condoms, or just try to steal them? Hell, do you want ribbed or not ribbed? All are recognized as specific actions/decisions which the game will respond to, but are completely optional and totally missable if you didn't think "what would happen if..." In this example, for the purpose of advancing the main story, you didn't actually need to have sex with the hooker at all, you just needed to get an item from her room. While this Sierra style of completely open world design wasn't without it's flaws (hello unexpected deaths), LSL 1 was when it really hit the sweet spot imo.

Also, the parser (text) input totally makes/breaks the experience, don't bother with this game if it's just gonna be the boiled down Lucasarts style point-click interface. Like Scribblenauts, you engage your imagination and interact on a whole other level when using your own words rather than just selecting from a streamlined menu, and that's a huge part of the fun. Clicking "Pick Up" and then clicking on the girl would never elicit the same chuckle as typing in "Honk boobs" and then getting a text box back that says "Slap!!"

@haggis said:

Of all the old Sierra games that could be remade, they had to pick Leisure Suit Larry? Really? Why? The game gives off a vibe like some fat guy reading Playboys and smoking a cigar. He thinks he's this cool guy, but we all know he's a perv. Back in the 80s, when porn was ... different, and less accessible, LSL made a kind of sense. But nowadays it just looks creepy. I've got nothing against adult games, and LSL was (god, I don't want to say it) seminal in the genre, but it simply does not need to be remade. Rebooted? Maybe. Actually, no.

I think the problem is you were going to LSL for your porn needs when it's actually a comedy franchise. Sex and humor go together. 40-Year-Old Virgin, that's basically Leisure Suit Larry.

It's not about being pervy. What the franchise ended up becoming after they took it away from Al Lowe... well, yeah, Box Office Bust. That's your pervy smoking fat guy (I really don't get that analogy, but whatever works for you).

I'm rather fond of the old LSL games for some reason. I still remember my parents and their friends kicking 7-year-old me out of the computer room when I wandered in as they were playing the first game.

Leisure Suit Larry 5, 6, and 7 I feel were the best games of the series. I think those would be the only ones that would be worth owning. My bias is probably because I was introduced to Larry with 5, but trying to play the originals never seemed to give me the same enjoyment as those 3. Maybe with a refreshed interface the writing of the first 3 will be more easily enjoyed.

I completely agree about Grim Fandango being re-released. Definitely my favorite game of that genre.

@onan said:

@haggis said:

Of all the old Sierra games that could be remade, they had to pick Leisure Suit Larry? Really? Why? The game gives off a vibe like some fat guy reading Playboys and smoking a cigar. He thinks he's this cool guy, but we all know he's a perv. Back in the 80s, when porn was ... different, and less accessible, LSL made a kind of sense. But nowadays it just looks creepy. I've got nothing against adult games, and LSL was (god, I don't want to say it) seminal in the genre, but it simply does not need to be remade. Rebooted? Maybe. Actually, no.

I think the problem is you were going to LSL for your porn needs when it's actually a comedy franchise. Sex and humor go together. 40-Year-Old Virgin, that's basically Leisure Suit Larry.

It's not about being pervy. What the franchise ended up becoming after they took it away from Al Lowe... well, yeah, Box Office Bust. That's your pervy smoking fat guy (I really don't get that analogy, but whatever works for you).

Uh, no. I perfectly well understand that LSL is a comedy series. It's that 1980s weird Playboy vibe. It wasn't even that funny. My point was not that it was trying to be pervy, but that it ended up being that way despite it's generally lousy attempts to be funny. The whole point of the game was to make fun of the 1970s era player: smoking jacket, cigar, connoisseur-of-woman type. I mean, it's "Leisure Suit" Larry for god's sake, if you don't get the analogy I'm not sure how you could get the game's humor at all.

The problem was that the whole goal of the game was to see titties. That was your reward for figuring out the puzzles. And this wasn't just a problem after Al Lowe got cut from the series. The problem was there from the beginning. The real problem with the series is that Al Lowe's writing was never all that funny to begin with, in addition to being creepy (the difference between LSL and 40-year-old Virgin is that the main character is actually sympathetic in the later, but not in the former). He may have been a perfectly good programmer in his day, but he was never a writer.

@haggis said:

@onan said:

@haggis said:

Of all the old Sierra games that could be remade, they had to pick Leisure Suit Larry? Really? Why? The game gives off a vibe like some fat guy reading Playboys and smoking a cigar. He thinks he's this cool guy, but we all know he's a perv. Back in the 80s, when porn was ... different, and less accessible, LSL made a kind of sense. But nowadays it just looks creepy. I've got nothing against adult games, and LSL was (god, I don't want to say it) seminal in the genre, but it simply does not need to be remade. Rebooted? Maybe. Actually, no.

I think the problem is you were going to LSL for your porn needs when it's actually a comedy franchise. Sex and humor go together. 40-Year-Old Virgin, that's basically Leisure Suit Larry.

It's not about being pervy. What the franchise ended up becoming after they took it away from Al Lowe... well, yeah, Box Office Bust. That's your pervy smoking fat guy (I really don't get that analogy, but whatever works for you).

Uh, no. I perfectly well understand that LSL is a comedy series. It's that 1980s weird Playboy vibe. It wasn't even that funny. My point was not that it was trying to be pervy, but that it ended up being that way despite it's generally lousy attempts to be funny. The whole point of the game was to make fun of the 1970s era player: smoking jacket, cigar, connoisseur-of-woman type. I mean, it's "Leisure Suit" Larry for god's sake, if you don't get the analogy I'm not sure how you could get the game's humor at all.

The problem was that the whole goal of the game was to see titties. That was your reward for figuring out the puzzles. And this wasn't just a problem after Al Lowe got cut from the series. The problem was there from the beginning. The real problem with the series is that Al Lowe's writing was never all that funny to begin with, in addition to being creepy (the difference between LSL and 40-year-old Virgin is that the main character is actually sympathetic in the later, but not in the former). He may have been a perfectly good programmer in his day, but he was never a writer.

I don't know which Larry games you were playing, but there was hardly any nudity at all in the first 4 or 5 larry games. Larry hardly ever got laid, and when he did, it usually went disastrously wrong (dying of venereal diseases, finding out it was a man, etc). He was a clueless 40 year old loser computer programmer who put on a gaudy leisure suit because he thought they were still in fashion. He was still a virgin in the first game if I recall correctly. It was really no place for a smoking jacket when his first sexual escapade is with a prostitute above Lefty's bar that he has to scrounge up extra cash to afford. They make a point of making her look as gross as possible in the close-up, too. The scene itself is kind of hilarious with that giant censor bar bouncing around on the bed.

The point of the games was about getting laid, but it was never about titillation, more like when you tried to help get that hopeless roommate from college laid and watching him screw it up somehow.

There is a bunch of nudity and sex in Magna Cum Laude, though, and Box Office bust at least has a bunch of multiple choice side missions leading to sex (It was so bad I never stuck with it long enough to see any nudity), but those don't really count. Not only because they weren't made by Al Lowe, but they're also following his nephew, Larry Lovage. The most nudity in the Al Lowe games that I can recall was probably in Love for Sail, but I never saw any of it on my first playthrough, since it was all locked behind difficult-to-uncover-without-a-faq easter eggs.

I'm saying this is a perception thing for you. The Al Lowe-helmed series was more about corny jokes and double entendres with an adult theme, the Playboy mindset has nothing to do with it. As far as being a pervert, the character isn't one, but I guess if someone plays in the hopes of seeing something naughty, it would make the player one. Larry's just a squirrel trying to get a nut... he just doesn't have the looks, skills, or personality to pull it off.

@haggis said:

@onan said:

@haggis said:

Of all the old Sierra games that could be remade, they had to pick Leisure Suit Larry? Really? Why? The game gives off a vibe like some fat guy reading Playboys and smoking a cigar. He thinks he's this cool guy, but we all know he's a perv. Back in the 80s, when porn was ... different, and less accessible, LSL made a kind of sense. But nowadays it just looks creepy. I've got nothing against adult games, and LSL was (god, I don't want to say it) seminal in the genre, but it simply does not need to be remade. Rebooted? Maybe. Actually, no.

I think the problem is you were going to LSL for your porn needs when it's actually a comedy franchise. Sex and humor go together. 40-Year-Old Virgin, that's basically Leisure Suit Larry.

It's not about being pervy. What the franchise ended up becoming after they took it away from Al Lowe... well, yeah, Box Office Bust. That's your pervy smoking fat guy (I really don't get that analogy, but whatever works for you).

Uh, no. I perfectly well understand that LSL is a comedy series. It's that 1980s weird Playboy vibe. It wasn't even that funny. My point was not that it was trying to be pervy, but that it ended up being that way despite it's generally lousy attempts to be funny. The whole point of the game was to make fun of the 1970s era player: smoking jacket, cigar, connoisseur-of-woman type. I mean, it's "Leisure Suit" Larry for god's sake, if you don't get the analogy I'm not sure how you could get the game's humor at all.

The problem was that the whole goal of the game was to see titties. That was your reward for figuring out the puzzles. And this wasn't just a problem after Al Lowe got cut from the series. The problem was there from the beginning. The real problem with the series is that Al Lowe's writing was never all that funny to begin with, in addition to being creepy (the difference between LSL and 40-year-old Virgin is that the main character is actually sympathetic in the later, but not in the former). He may have been a perfectly good programmer in his day, but he was never a writer.

There were no titties in the first three original games. It's OK, you obviously didn't play them. Their humour was Sierra Adventure humour, no more, no less and there was nothing creepy about it.

@SeriouslyNow: I actually did play them, and you're being a dick, like usual. The game puts you in a hot tub with a girl, her boobs barely submerged in water. Or did you not play the game? Probably not.

@haggis said:

@SeriouslyNow: I actually did play them, and you're being a dick, like usual. The game puts you in a hot tub with a girl, her boobs barely submerged in water. Or did you not play the game? Probably not.

The game puts you in a hot tub with a girl at the end of the game and you don't get to see her boobs. You see her neck and her face. I know, you were probably fapping to it and felt guilty because you were a kid. I get it. As to who's being the dick here, it's you, because you've insulted Al Lowe (a person who's had a successful career as a writer and game dev) and Sierra games in general because you hold some guilt for your childhood desires and you realise just how pathetic they were. Adults who aren't dicks get over that and don't shit on the past to cover their guilt.

Dick.

@SeriouslyNow said:

@haggis said:

@SeriouslyNow: I actually did play them, and you're being a dick, like usual. The game puts you in a hot tub with a girl, her boobs barely submerged in water. Or did you not play the game? Probably not.

The game puts you in a hot tub with a girl at the end of the game and you don't get to see her boobs. You see her neck and her face. I know, you were probably fapping to it and felt guilty because you were a kid. I get it. As to who's being the dick here, it's you, because you've insulted Al Lowe (a person who's had a successful career as a writer and game dev) and Sierra games in general because you hold some guilt for your childhood desires and you realise just how pathetic they were. Adults who aren't dicks get over that and don't shit on the past to cover their guilt.

Dick.

Yeah, I don't know why I bother with you. Al Lowe was a horrible writer. But other than that, I love Sierra's games. I'm not shitting on the past, I'm just saying that the LSL games sucked. I'm not the only one who thinks so.

I'm not going to tie up this thread with your bullshit though, so go ahead and take a parting shot. I won't bother reading it.

@haggis said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@haggis said:

@SeriouslyNow: I actually did play them, and you're being a dick, like usual. The game puts you in a hot tub with a girl, her boobs barely submerged in water. Or did you not play the game? Probably not.

The game puts you in a hot tub with a girl at the end of the game and you don't get to see her boobs. You see her neck and her face. I know, you were probably fapping to it and felt guilty because you were a kid. I get it. As to who's being the dick here, it's you, because you've insulted Al Lowe (a person who's had a successful career as a writer and game dev) and Sierra games in general because you hold some guilt for your childhood desires and you realise just how pathetic they were. Adults who aren't dicks get over that and don't shit on the past to cover their guilt.

Dick.

Yeah, I don't know why I bother with you. Al Lowe was a horrible writer. But other than that, I love Sierra's games. I'm not shitting on the past, I'm just saying that the LSL games sucked. I'm not the only one who thinks so.

I'm not going to tie up this thread with your bullshit though, so go ahead and take a parting shot. I won't bother reading it.

Cool. Thanks for playing.

Al Lowe is back, I'm in. The games were funny up until Larry 7, then it all went downhill, so seeing at least remakes of the first few is welcome.

I'm thinking maybe cartoon tits don't have the same cachet anymore, that's what DeviantArt is for.

Huh. I figured the franchise died with those last couple of reboot/sequels.

Is there still a market for this kind of game?

I hope they follow this up with SpaceQuest :/

Just make it better than Box Office Bust.