I originally wrote this for gone gold, after I couldn't reach GG, I post it at QT3. I've cleaned it up and updated it a bit. I got Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude this week. Put about six hours of play time in. So far initial impressions are hugely positive with a few nits.
The game concept is mostly unchanged from every other LSL game. You play a complete loser as you attempt to get women characters naked and then score with them. Along the way you are exposes to lots of humorous situations. The big change is the pixel hunts and object matching game play has been replaced by simon says and simple arcade games. Over all I think these substitutions are an improvement, except in the dialog department. I rather of be able to pick and chose conversation options but honestly it’s a minor nit. The conversations are still fun and very humorous. There are a lot of in jokes that fans of the series will get. The mini games ARE fun and you only have to play them in bite size chunks.
The graphics are much better than I expected. They are attractive and cartoonish, fitting the genre and themes perfectly. The sound and voice acting, while not great, are serviceable. As for the pr0n factor, it isn’t any stronger than an episode of HBO’s series RealSex. Which is to say there aren't any real limits but it stays on the humorous "giggle sex" side without venturing into serious erotica or hard core. My wife played the game for about an hour after I did and I think she liked it more than I did so it wasn’t that offensive. Still not something you’ll play with kids around or within earshot. In the game out of the box, there is a big censor box over the “naughty bits” but that’s easy to remove by editing a game file.
Just search for a file called AppInit.jam and open it with a Hex Editor and search for "NudityMode". If you haven't hexed in awhile, I recommend XVI32. Its free, easy to use, and fast.
http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htmYou will then find an entry like this:
// Nudity Setting -- set this value to 1 to remove censor bars (for european version)
DataLink { Name "NudityMode" Type Boolean Data 0 }
Change the 0 to a 1.
There are a few nits. The console controls didn’t port very well to the pc. Maybe I can reconfigure them but out of the box, they are very problematic. If you use the keyboard, there is one mini game you run into fairly early that is virtually impossible. If you use a joystick with an analog stick (which makes the previous game very easy), the simon says sections become very hard when they weren’t before. So I find myself switching between the keyboard and controller. Which is fine but takes away from the fun somewhat. Remember I haven’t tried playing with the settings yet so this might be completely fixable.
The other nit is loading. Get use to the loading screen because you will see it often. VERY OFTEN. Open the door. Loading….Walk down the hall. Loading…. Interact with an object. Loading…. Talk to someone. Loading…. The loading screens are fast so they aren’t that much of a drag but they come up in places where you don’t expect them.
I don’t care but for those who do the game box completely fails "the lift test." There is NO printed manual for this game.
