Is it possible to make a blandly inoffensive adventure game that focuses on sex-comedy and the hookup culture of 2018? Can a franchise rooted in the sensibilities of the ‘80s and ‘90s work when deprived of its lead writer and released in The Era of That’s Not Funny? These were the major questions I had going into a playthrough of Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry, a sort of but not quite reboot of the classic Sierra Online Leisure Suit Larry adventure gaming franchise by developer CrazyBunch and publisher Assemble Entertainment.
Our story picks up shortly after the events of the original Leisure Suit Larry: In The Land of the Lounge Lizards. However, in this version, Larry wakes up thirty years later due to some unexplained (and unimportant) science experiment machinations that froze him in time. Once he figures out how to work the elevator, he staggers back into Lefty’s Bar to find out what has happened.
A chance acquisition of a new cellphone prototype left in the bathroom serves as the catalyst to gets Larry moving again. In returning the phone, he meets Faith, the major-domo at Prune, and concludes that she’s the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately for Larry, the only to get to Faith is with a sufficiently high Timber score. This sets Larry off on a quest to build of his score by scoring on Timber, to get the date of his dreams. From there, things only go downhill.
Larry’s response to meeting a modern social-media obsessed female is pretty funny.
Leisure Suit Larry: In The Land of the Lounge Lizards was a groundbreaking game when it was released in 1987. With stories and jokes written by Al Lowe, the game and its sequels became one of the franchise pillars of the Sierra Online adventure gaming classics of the ‘80s and ‘90s. A pair of spinoffs in the Aughts staring Larry’s nephew failed both critically and commercially, however, a 2013 remake of the original game met with reasonable commercial success after a very successful Kickstarter campaign, and fans were hopeful that Larry would once again rise to success.
Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry follows a classic point-and-click adventure game formula. Items in Larry’s inventory can sometimes be combined to form new items (for example, placing an ice-cold slush in an insulated cup to keep it frozen longer), and finding/using items are the keys to solving various puzzles and moving the game forward. Some puzzles definitely fall into the category of “too clever” by far, and will have the average player either searching forums for a walkthrough or just quitting. At times, other puzzles can devolve into irritating pixel hunts, where players must wave the mouse over various screens attempting to discover that one little hotspot (so to speak) that they’ve missed and can’t solve some puzzle without.
Pi, the snarky assistant in Larry’s phone, gets a lot of the best lines.
At least the game looks pretty enough. Larry will never be a 10, but his latest endeavor holds up against Telltale Games’ (RIP) adventure offerings. Players on older laptops should check the system requirements carefully, as some onboard graphics cards at or near the minimum spec may have some surprising heat issues. This writer’s old laptop that gets hauled around on business travel certainly did.
A bright spot in the game is the soundtrack, which strikes an excellent balance between retro inspired chip-tunes and modern compositions. From the opening theme, which plays while Larry is in an Unter (Uber’s fictional equivalent) on his way to Prune HQ, all the way to the end credits song, the soundtrack makes a great companion. The voice acting is similarly solid, with Jan Rabson reprising his role as Larry. A number of mismatches between the voiceover and subtitles are a bit distracting, however.
Classic Sierra games would sometimes kill you for making the wrong choice. LSL: WDDD continues that trend, though with a somewhat gentler recovery.
Players who persevere through the puzzles will find a game that lasts for around eight to ten hours. Fewer for people using a walkthrough for every step, or who are preternaturally good at puzzles, longer for people who prefer to get the joy of discovery by themselves, or who are just bad at brain-teasers. Getting 100% of the achievements and unlockable pictures will require a second playthrough or multiple save files, but beyond that, there’s little reason to play continue playing through the game.
It’s great to see Larry back in action again. 2018 should provide a huge number of jokes (we use our phones to get into cars with strangers, teenagers eat tide pods and then lecture us on politics, professional gamer is an actual valid occupation), and Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry is often at its best lampooning the sillier aspects of modern culture. However, a lot of times the game just seems too safe and easy.
A cosplayer. That’s what Larry is! Definitely!
There’s a throwaway line by Larry at one point where he says “If you want jokes about women and minorities, you’ll have to go lower” which comes off as a thinly-veiled reference to the absence of series creator Al Lowe from this game. That seems like it’s a big part of the problem. Old Larry games were marginally offensive, but they got their shots off at everyone. If you weren’t offended, then you hadn’t played far enough into the game yet. This new version plays it as safe as a double full body condom, going in for easy jokes and absolutely nothing else.
As a franchise reboot, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry isn’t bad, but it feels like a lot of wasted opportunities. Larry fans and adventure gamers will certainly have fun (a lot more than they had with the mini-game filled spinoffs, at least), but this game seems unlikely to enter the pantheon of classic adventure games. The best gamers can likely hope for is that LSL:WDDD does well enough that CrazyBunch can be a little less safe with future games.
A copy of Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry was provided for this review. All opinions are the reviewer’s own.
