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Title Leisure Suit Larry (Enhanced Version)
Game Type Adventure
Players 1
Compatibility All Amigas
HD Installable ?
Company Sierra (designed by Al Lowe and Mark Crowe)
Submission Seppo Typpö (groucho@pp.inet.fi) Profiled Reviewer

Review
Back in 1987, Leisure Suit Larry, a humourous graphic adventure, arrived
on Amiga screens. In 1991, Sierra decided to revive the old classic with
enchanced graphics and sound, while sprucing up the gameplay with their
(then) new icon based user interface. The Man in Polyester was back,
looking and sounding better than before. But is the new version a worthy
successor to the old classic?

Simple answer is - yes and no. The enchanced graphics meant 256 colours in
the IBM compatible world - on the Amiga side this meant 32 colour dithered
graphics with a rather shabby colour palette. Apparently the colour scheme
was downgraded with no regards to picture quality - the backgrounds look
unclear and textures 'fuzzy'. Luckily the animation is fluid - the only
notable slowdown happens in the casino scene where there are lots of moving
things on the screen (in Sierra's case.'lots' means 'more than three
moving characters'). Interestingly, similar slowdown appeared on the same
scene in the original version - hinting that game is exactly the same game
as the original but with uppgraded audio and visuals.

Speaking of graphics, the biggest difference between the original and this
enchanced version is in the main character graphics. Larry has been
transformed from a 'lego man' to 'Mr big giant potato head', resembling
his picture on the gamebox cover much more than before. Whether you like
this new comical look is up to personal taste - but it does add some
'personal flavour' to the character.

Soundwise the game is really enchanced - there's now properly orchestrated
four channel music and also some speech samples which are put to good use
- for example, you can now actually hear the "What a pervert!" line when
Larry buys 'lubber' in the famous general store scene.

The biggest change in the new version is without doubt the new user
interface. When designing their own icon-based UI, Sierra chose a very
different path than for example LucasArts. First, the selection of verbs
is very limited - walk, look, action, talk - and second, they are chosen
in a very straightforward manner, by either continuously clicking the
right mouse button until the mouse cursor transforms into the required
choice or by selecting them from the icon bar which appears at the top of
the screen if you move the mouse cursor over it. The new system is very easy
to learn and use.

The original Larry has a notoriusly strict text interface. The parser was
very picky - even if you knew what you had to do, you still had to type in
the exact words to successfully execute your actions. The icon driven
interface relieves the player from this unnecessary burden - but due to
its simple nature (and because of the simple puzzles Larry has) it also
takes some of the challenge away. You'll also miss all the clever insults
programmers (Al Lowe and Mark Crowe) built into the game to tease the
unfortunate player - this undoubtedly is a positive thing to some players
but also something that I think is an integral part of 'The Larry
experience'.

While the original version has a special place in my heart and despite the
slightly flawed conversion (especially on the graphics side) I would
recommend this new version over it. The actual gameplay has not changed at
all - all the toilet humour and shabby scenes (complete with the animated
'CENSORED' plate) are still there. If you own the original version there's
no reason to buy this unless you are stuck in the original and want to
play the game with the new easier user interface. Also, if you hate the
game style Larry represents, this game is unlikely to turn you into a
convert.