Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude [PS2]

Back in Sierra's glory days (circa 1990), Leisure Suit Larry was a series of humorous adventure games about an animated would-be ladies man stuck in his own personal 1970s. Larry had lounge-lizard style, loud shirts, white jackets with wide lapels, and a libido built for two. He looked for love everywhere, getting regularly, humorously, and brutally shot down. If ever a much-beloved game character cried out for a contemporary retooling, it was Larry Laffer.

Today, Larry would be considerably older and Viagra-dependent, so it's probably best that the relentless pursuit of "love" be passed on to the next generation. In this case the honor goes to Laffer's nephew, Larry Loveage. Vivendi's forthcoming Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude follows Loveage's amorous exploits, a "student" attending Walnut Log Community College. We got a preview of the lust and laughter to come, and are happy to report that the Larry legacy appears to be in good hands.

Our new hero must cope with the daily trials of college (parties, fraternities, extracurricular activities, etc.), but in game terms, it all boils down to new situations for meeting girls. The holy grail of girl-chasing -- a reality dating show called "Swingles" -- is coming to campus, and Loveage wants his 15 minutes of shame. Winning the girls' affections (which in another game might take the form of "boss battles") means knowing just the right moves and lines to lay on them.

As risque;, puerile, and laugh-out-loud funny as the dialogue was in the old Larry games, the entire scheme has been chucked in favor of real-time, comedic action. When Larry sets out to win a girl's heart, the player actively guides the conversation with action-based challenges.

In the demo, players used the analog stick to maneuver a little swimming sperm -- yes, read it again -- past ever-approaching obstacles in a window at the bottom of the screen. This reminded us of something you'd see in rhythm-based games [that's a disastrous pun! -Ed] like Dance Dance Revolution.

In well-timed modular chunks of dialogue, Larry starts his smooth-talking; if the player moves the sperm to collect all the "good" icons, Larry lays the charm on with a trowel. When successful, each bit of flattery synchs up smoothly for a single running flood of whatever the young lady in question wants to hear. Campus-revolutionary types hear railings against The System, Earth-"Grrls" get impassioned pleas to save the whales, and prima donnas hear paeans to their beauty.

If the player panics and repeatedly hits the "bad" icons, however, Larry's attempt at pillow talk comes apart like a cheap Soviet satellite on re-entry. His speech devolves into an unappealing verbal train-wreck of inappropriate comments, idiotic non-sequiturs, and inadvertent gastric incidents. The writing is top-notch, so the experience is entertaining whether or not the player is doing particularly well. The danger, of course, is that it's easy to start laughing and miss one's timing during the verbal barrage.

Other challenges and mini-games include old standbys like running races, jumping on trampolines, and the drinking game, Quarters. Still others take innocent button-dexterity challenges... oh, and then befoul them with unseemly, M-rated humor. For example, one of Larry's conquests turns out to be something of a twisted nympho-masochist who only gets turned on when the player wears a goofy sports mascot costume. Her mini-game involves -- we kid you not -- the player delivering a button-based bottom-spanking, with the derriere filling the screen in first-person perspective!

All this sounds pretty racy, doesn't it? Well, it gets worse (or better, depending). Unlike the double-entendre games from Larry yore, this game doesn't merely imply, it delivers. We cringed just a bit when the aforementioned band chick -- now post-coitally naked on Larry's dorm bed -- lovingly informed him that she would be telling her parents about their impending marriage. The language, too, is definitely geared for a mature market; the game drops "the F-bomb" a few times.

In the larger sense, Magna Cum Laude is a fully 3D game. Loveage runs around a navigable campus that includes dorm hallways, outdoor quads, lecture halls, stages, and other well-realized environs. True to reality, the girls around him can sense what shape his ego is in. If it's in shambles, they'll shun his advances. (They can tell because a depressed Larry will forlornly mope, rather than skip, about the premises -- a nice touch.)

The game's finishing touches are still being applied, and even the designers aren't sure how far the final product will push the ratings envelope. At the demo, we saw some animated (and painfully funny) bedroom antics that we shan't describe here, but were also cautioned that the more extreme bits would likely not make the cut. Nothing actively pornographic, of course, but still stuff that would make you hustle to shut off the TV if your nephew suddenly ambled into the room.

Despite the new 3D world and the considerably more risky subject-matter, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude looks like it will be remarkably faithful to the original in tone, humor, and production values. Lest old-schoolers protest, there's even a cameo and tutorial presence by Larry Laffer himself (now sporting a little snow on the roof, but still dressing to score). There isn't anything remotely like Magna Cum Laude on the immediate gaming horizon, so we'll be loitering around in time for the full review, tongue firmly in cheek. If you follow.