After many years away from the world of video games, Leisure Suit Larry has returned and is just as rude and crude as ever. Larry Laffer has come back, but for once he is not used to the new digital age. He wakes up in a strange lab, a sort of self-aware joke that he has been essentially asleep as the gaming industry has moved on. Larry immediately jumps on the knock-off Tinder dating app, Timber, to try and get his dating fix.
If that sounds incredibly cringey, then this game will not be for you. The humour is juvenile, and it feels as if a 14-year-old boy was left to write the script. That comes across in every aspect of this game, starting off with what Larry himself looks like. He reminds me of what Howard Wolowitz from The Big Bang Theory was like in the early part of the series: a scrawny, sleazy slimeball. Every single time you interact with anyone, the developer chucks in a joke that screams schoolboy humour, which is exactly the type of audience the game is aiming for. People who enjoy these games aren’t looking for any intellectual social commentaries or sophisticated jokes, they want penis-shaped buildings, unicorns with female genitals for a mouth and toilet gags out the wazoo.
It was always going to be a difficult sell, this game, bringing a series back that is known for its low-brow sexual humour and starring a womanising player like Larry who, for a majority of gamers, was in the recycling bin a long time ago. However, the developers kind of know this by making the game as close to the original series as possible and also by poking fun at themselves in the process. This though is not always a good thing as this game can be quite offensive, and it feels like a relic of what gaming used to be.
The game pokes fun at social media, online dating and hipster trends, but it feels so out of date that it hurts sometimes; it feels like it was made with a combination of old, grumpy men and 14-year-old schoolboys in mind. The writing, whilst also feeling dated, does raise the occasional chuckle and smile but nothing more than that, really. The story, however, does make you want to see the game through to its conclusion as it is centered around a dodgy tech giant and also taking shots at the video game development practices that are going on in this day and age.
The game does try and be self-aware, like when you craft something, the game gives the option to reverse this, then it makes the joke that the programmers were too lazy to actually put this feature in the game, which is about as funny as it sounds. The aim of the game is to get Larry’s Timber to a rating of 90, which does open the game up as it allows for non-linear puzzle solving. Every time Larry goes on a date, they ask Larry to complete a task before he can get the profile boost. These are just puzzles that are glorified fetch quests of giving items to other characters or crafting some wild thing to give to character. The order in which you do the tasks is totally up to you though.
To the game’s credit, it does look and sound brilliant, with an amazing hand-drawn art style and perfect voice acting to suit every single character. The characters themselves, aside from Larry, are quite likable, if a little lacking in the intelligence department.
Overall, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry is a mildly enjoyable entry in the point and click adventure genre. Some of the jokes do not land in the way that the developers probably intended them to, but this game was a bit of guilty pleasure in the end for me. If you are easily offended or aren’t into games centered around a gigolo, then do avoid this one.
Developer: CrazyBunch
Publisher: Assemble Entertainment
Platforms: PS4, PC, Switch
Release Date: 13th June 2019