Video Game Draft 2013

My first round pick goes to...

Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards

My first experience at gaming happened some 26+ years ago. My parents bought me an IBM PCjr from a friend who worked at IBM, since it had been considered a commercial failure and was being sold on the cheap to IBM employees. While it may have been a commercial failure, for an 11 year old kid it was heaven. I immediately began playing any computer games I could and Sierra On-Line became my favorite publisher. Then one day, around my 12th birthday my parents bought me a game that hooked me for life, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards.

This sparked my interest in the series, which lasts to this day. Just what made the series so great? Well a lot really. The Leisure Suit Larry series was published by Sierra from 1987 to 2009, but for this draft I’m going to focus on the adventure games that they released from 1987 to 1996. Those released afterwards were poor adaptations that many fans of the series have disavowed, and for good reason. Created and written by Al Lowe, Leisure Suit Larry follows the escapades of its main character, Larry Laffer who, though still somewhat lovable, is a balding, no-luck, double entendre-speaking, leisure suit wearing loser in his 40s. The series follows him around as he spends much of his life trying, and usually unsuccessfully, to seduce attractive women.



The Leisure Suit Larry (LSL) series had its origins in Sierra’s earlier Softporn Adventure, a 1981 text adventure whose story and basic structure were reused for the first LSL game. The name Leisure Suit Larry came from Lowe’s comment to Sierra founder Ken Williams that Softporn Adventure was so dated that it should be wearing a leisure suit.

The LSL games were one of Sierra’s most popular game series during the genre’s heyday and as such, they remain well-known among fans today. While the series stands out among Sierra’s catalog for being the only games the company produced that contain significant sexual themes, they gained somewhat of a reputation for not actually showing all that much racy material. Lowe and company were masters at revealing just enough, but not stepping over the line. To be fair, this really wasn’t a game produced for 12 years olds, its target market was a little older. Still, it was a lot of fun to play.

The Sierra adventure games defined a generation of gaming. If you’re unfamiliar with them, they utilized Sierra’s Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) and Sierra’s Creative Interpreter (SCI). The AGI game engine was used by Sierra through most of the 1980′s to create and run animated, color adventure games. AGI-based computer games accepted typed commands via keyboard, as well as joystick input. Think of point and click games, but with the addition of typing in commands for characters to perform. The SCI engine was a bit more advanced, it allowed for games to use higher graphics and made it easier to code for the point and click games, as well as accepting type inputs. These game engines became famous for their easy of use, and familiarity when playing the various Sierra titles. We still see these type of adventure games in use today.



The first in the Leisure Suit Larry series, the game is set in the fictional city of Lost Wages and follows Larry Laffer, a 40 year old virgin as he tries to get lucky. Land of the Lounge Lizards establishes several elements which recur throughout the series, from his leisure suit to his perpetual bad luck with women. Living in his mother’s basement and having grown weary of his lonely existence, Laffer decides to visit the resort city of Lost Wages to get the experience of a lifetime and finally find the woman of his dreams. Larry’s quest involves four women: a nameless, seedy-looking prostitute; Fawn, a club-goer of low moral fiber; Faith, a receptionist who (true to her name) is faithful to her boyfriend; and Eve, a bathing beauty and Larry’s ultimate goal.

The game begins in Lefty’s bar, a seedy townie bar on the outskirts of Lost Wages. From there players are given two real-time hours to complete the game, at which point a despairing Larry commits suicide, resulting in game over. There is a way to circumvent the time limit, and it involves speaking to a prostitute. Players control Larry’s movements with the directional keys and by inputting commands into a text parser. You need to get creative here and think of things to tell Larry to do, like “order a drink”, ”open window”, “run away” etc. Fear not though, if you’re too far away from a person or object to comply, or if the command you input is invalid, a caution message appears with hints on what to do.

The city consists of five areas: Lefty’s Bar, a hotel casino, a 24-hour wedding chapel, a disco, and a convenience store. Keep in mind that this is 1987 we’re talking about so having vast open cities was unheard of, and to be frank near impossible to do with the current technology. As a player you can control where Larry walks to, or in cases where the distances are to great takes a taxi to. It’s important to remember that taking a taxi costs the player money so don’t spend it on frivolous things. If you try to walk somewhere a taxi is required it will results in Larry being mugged or hit by oncoming traffic.

Larry’s interactions with key women are accompanied by a detailed image of whomever he is speaking with, unlike other non-player characters. Each of the women shun Larry at first, but respond favorably to gifts of varying sorts. He’s basically bribing them for recognition. Although it is not possible to woo all of the women, giving gifts is needed to advance to the game’s final area, the hotel penthouse. Everything costs money in the game, and it’s essential to have enough money to take taxi’s, but gifts, etc so you’ll be spending a good amount of time gambling in the casino, playing blackjack and slots. The more you earn, the more you can spend.

Leisure Suit Larry and the Land of the Lounge Lizards is a fun, interactive game that is easy to complete, but will give you laughs from start to finish. It’s important to keep in mind that games were limited to their technology, much like they are now, and back then computers were no better than the smartphones of four years ago. For its time, the 8-bit graphics that brought Larry to life were some of the best on the market. The game attracted millions of fans, and still has the power to bring in new fans. If you’re interested in playing a classic series, this is where you begin.

@Norsk Troll is on the clock

 

This game changed my life, it really cultivated my love for soccer, spent far too much time playing it, and eventually got me a an amazingly great job.

It's also a truly mind boggling the scale and scope of detail that goes into each version of the game.

The transformation from Championship Manager (and working with Eidos/Domark) to Football Manager and Sega was a very interesting time, and it was said to see the moniker die a slow painful death.

 

This game opened up the world of video games and Sierra to me, which included a lot of other games.

 

With my first pick I select the most important game in the world... of Warcraft.



While there are tons of games I could pick here that I might not get later, this would be the biggest loss if it slipped through. This game reaches as diverse and global an audience as any game ever has. It peaked at 12 million subscribers or so and 9 years after release is still the dominant MMO it was back then when it over took its predecessor.

It's a pop culture icon already far bigger than any of the picks made so far and likely has decades more life in it based on how long previous MMOs hung around.

I've played since 2007 and that helped get me my current job so I am also picking something important to me. I plan on picking games I played which will make for tough choices in some series but this is first pick material regardless of sentiment or nostalgia.

@Dills is up

 

With my first pick in the first round, I have to go with the title which started me down the gaming path at the ripe old age of six (or maybe seven) ... PITFALL!



Logs, tar pits, crocodiles, scorpions, swinging vines, treasure!

I even managed to break the 20k score mark (or was it 25k?), sent my Polaroid (yup) picture into Activision, and got myself an "Explorers' Club" patch, just like this one ...


@Belgian guy to the white courtesy phone, please.