Let me just say, I really like Leisure Suit Larry 1, I'm a huge fan of the classic Sierra adventure games, and I'm especially fond of the pre point and click stuff. This isn't a review of Leisure Suit Larry, which is an awesome and funny adventure game with an adult theme. This is a review of Assemble Entertainment, the crappy company and their crappy port.

For whatever reason, the IP for the Larry games has switched hands independently of the rest of Sierra's major franchices. So this port has been put together by a company that is different than the folks that have been doing the ports for King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, and Police quest. The people who did this port are incompetent.

The game advertises that it has both the original and later VGA (not reloaded) remake of LL1. When I booted it up, I just got the original version though. It turns out that in order to play the VGA version, you have to go into the properties and select it from the beta menu. That's right, Assemble entertainment are too incompetent to properly use the Steam interface. Instead of adding a choice box when the game is booted up, like every other game like this I've ever played on Steam, they used the beta menu to switch between versions, something the beta menu isn't meant for. They don't even tell you this anywhere, I had to figure out where my VGA version was by going through the discussions.

The port just uses ScummVM. A lot of games do it, but it just shows how little they contributed to this 'port', it's just the original game files with a freeware emulator put on top. Also it doesn't work. At least for me, and for a lot of people. There's an issue with the mouse cursor not working right. People have compained to Assemble Entertainment. Their response is that it can't be fixed and they should demand a refund.

People have reported bugs and issues with the game files to Asssemble Entertainment, and they've mocked their customers for pointing these things out. If you're lucky, maybe they'll whine that it's not their fault and these are just the files they were given from the rights holder. Hey dumbasses at Assemble Entertainment, it's still your responsiblity and your problem. You're the publishers, not your customer.

Hostile to their customers, incompetent, and did a piss poor port of an awesome game. Oh yeah, and their product doesn't work and they have no intention of ever fixing it. IMO this is the worst kind of video game publisher out there, and Valve should be kicking them off of Steam.

It's so sad to give a thumbs down to one of the greatest games of my youth but this new publisher released one of the laziest ports I've ever seen.

I bought this game in a bundle along with the rest of the larrys and some other odds and ends so the game came up to about 40 cents or so. This game is worth more than that but this port is worth much much less.

10/10 would recommend. Pirated the game back in the 90's and bought it here to pay Al back. I talked to Al and found out that he won't see a penny from the sales on Steam so I sent him a donation on his site. He's a legend! So if you're trying to make good for stealing it back in the day, go to Al's website instead.

I'd like to preface this by saying I have zero previous experiences with anything involving Leisure Suit Larry, and have never even heard of the series until a few years ago. I do, however, have a fascination for vintage DOS/VGA games. I always enjoyed the look of them. I picked up all the LSL games and, obviously, I started with the first game of the bunch. I had played through it once, then realized that the VGA remake was something you needed to manually activate, so I played through the game once again. So if you're wondering which one to try first (or just try at all), definitely go for the VGA version (check the betas tab in your steam properties).

That being said, In the Land of the Lounge Lizards isn't a complex game in terms of story, as the game hinges on the sole goal that you must get some tail, though this game makes it far harder than it sounds. It'll take some trial and error, especially since it's fairly easy to die/lose the game, so saving after any sort of activity is very much encouraged. That being said, here's what I liked and didn't like:

THE GOOD:

The Humor - I absolutely love the humor and lighthearted adult themes that just gush from this game. I couldn't find a single dull moment, or a death that frustrated me due to the outlandish or entertaining way that it happened. The game's humor is certainly very 90s and sexual in most spots, which might not be for everyone, but it's still very, very entertaining if you enjoy that kind of humor.

The Remake's graphics - As I said before, I'm a fan of how neat games looked back in the DOS/95/98 days, and this game is certainly no different. nothing looks dull, and each and every location is incredibly neat and has a sort of charm to it (though with 6 different areas I'd certainly hope each area has a ton of personality).

THE BAD:

Accessibility - Unless you're an absolute die-hard fan of the old EGA graphics, or if you prefer a more text-based adventure, you'd be more inclined to play the fancier-looking, "modernized" VGA remake, one which I said above is much superior to the former. However Assemble Entertainment hadn't included the remake into the initial game, instead choosing to keep it as a beta branch (even including the instructions to access it in the game description). While I don't mind taking the extra steps to access my preferred version of the game, I don't approve of Assemble Entertainment not putting a tiny bit of effort to just add a seperate launcher. It makes no sense, especially since the remake is advertised in the screenshots of the game.

THE PRE-GAME QUESTIONS: I can understand that old games like this would prefer to have some sort "DRM" where you'd have to answer questions or enter a specific word from the manual. While archaic, it's not exactly detrimental, especially if you bought the game (though third-party sales are certainly another story), but this game insists that you answer several questions to make sure you're the age you claim to be. Which, again, wouldn't be too bad, except the game was made in the 80s (the vga remake in 91), so most of the questions asked are based on people or events from back then. Granted, there's a few questions that are common knowledge, like who was the leader of Nazi Germany, but there's more dated questions than anything. It makes no sense, and really should have been removed. There is, however, a way to skip the questions, by pressing CTRL+ALT+X. It's quick and painless but irritating that it has to be there in the first place.

CONCLUSION:

This game's strong point is certainly the humor, and with it around just about every corner, it's hard not to genuinely enjoy Leisure Suit Larry. The game itself is difficult, but to my understanding, old Sierra adventure games were quite ruthless, so you can't really fault the game itself for it, but if you can look past that (or wuss out like I did and find a walkthrough for hints), you'll find an incredibly charming game that you could waste a couple hours on. Just make sure you're playing the VGA remake. Trust me, it's worth it.

The Leisure Suit Larry - Retro Bundle was available for free on Fanatical, so I decided to try it out, even though I had never played the series before. It wasn’t something a little girl would have been interested in back when it was first released (and I wasn’t even born), but since I enjoy point-and-click and retro games, I gave it a chance.

In Leisure Suit Larry, you control Larry Laffer, a short loser on a mission to lose his virginity and maybe even find love. While the game revolves around mature and sexual themes, none of it is particularly scandalous, with black bars censoring explicit scenes. The humor feels dated and cringy by today’s standards, and it wasn’t really my taste, but I can see how it’s a product of its time.

The game uses text commands instead of offering interaction options, and figuring out what to do is often unclear. Some commands are so specific that it becomes frustrating. The taxi system was confusing too—I didn’t even realize you could call a taxi to travel to other locations until I checked a walkthrough. It’s not clear that places like the shop or casino even exist unless you look them up.

Larry moves very slowly, but there is an option to increase game speed, which makes exploration a bit less painful. It’s also really easy to die or lose in the game. Traveling between locations becomes tedious because you need money for the taxi, which you can earn in the casino. This is the part I hated most about the game. You have to repeatedly play blackjack or slot machines to earn money. This felt really grindy, as the winnings are mostly luck-based, and you can’t bet much money at a time, so I had to save and reload constantly.

The game includes an irritating age verification system requiring you to answer five trivia questions to prove you're over 18. Some questions may be outdated or irrelevant, especially for non-US players. You can bypass this entirely by pressing Ctrl+Alt+X.

One thing that really annoyed me was the manual, which has blurry pages, especially the part explaining which text commands are available.

If you want to play the newer VGA version, you have to activate it in the beta settings on Steam, and this isn’t explained anywhere. While the graphics and sound are better in this version, I wasn’t a fan of the updated controls. They replaced the text input with a clunky point-and-click system, and the UI felt overly complicated, with some buggy mouse interactions.

People who played this game when it first came out might feel nostalgic, but as a newcomer, the experience wasn’t all that enjoyable for me.

Probably the only NSFW-ish game I played when I was ~11. I remember being worried my parents might barge in. As if they'd have given two ♥♥♥♥♥ about some pixellated adventure game with 2 black 'censored' scenes : )

I used to think there was complete freedom in Leisure Suit Larry because you had to type in the commands like 'call cab' or 'give girl pills' yourself. I assumed you could pretty much go anywhere and do anything. Actually it's a short litte adventure with like 5 locations and ends pretty quickly if you know what to do or read a walkthrough.

Good humour. A classic.

Bought the game for nostalgia, hearing the classic DOS music again made me smile :)

The game still has the age verification questions when you start the game, but luckily that can be bypassed (Alt,Shift,X).

Funny pervy game. It is little difficult to play but it is still good classic.

Lovable loser Larry Laffer is a computer programmer, turning 40, and also, secretly ... A VIRGIN!!
Determined to right this terrible oversight in his life, Larry dons his finest 100% polyester leisure suit, and steps out on the town looking for love!

Lost Wages, Nevada, is where he needs to be -- and Larry takes to his mission with gusto!
Get laid, gamble, die trying, and maybe even find true love in the end...

While other kids were on a King's or a Space Quest -- or maybe taking in a Phantasmagoria with a 7th Guest at the 11th Hour -- I was beating feet to the mean streets, and looking for love in all the wrong places with 'Leisure Suit Larry'!

--

This package gives you access to both EGA & VGA versions of Al Lowe's first title!
Both are ScummVM ports, and there appears to be some slight image cropping.
The VGA version (activated through 'Properties>BETA>') replaces the parser controls with Sierra's 'Point & Click' interface -- and gave Larry's world the signature animated style which would carry the franchise forward.

They also removed the copyright protections -- which would make you check random pages in a 'Palamino Ranch' brochure -- but the age-verification questions are still there, kids.
Fans will fight through some minor annoyances to relive that true nostalgia.
Newcomers might be better off buying the updated 1080pHD, full-talkie 'Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded':

https://store.steampowered.com/app/231910/Leisure_Suit_Larry_in_the_Land_of_the_Lounge_Lizards_Reloaded/

I will start of saying that this game is from 1987 so the gameplay mechanic are not what you get in newer games. Instead of clicking stuff like you would in a normal point and click you have to actually type what you want to do. It works actually quite well, there was only one point in time I was stuck due to it (I could not for the life of me figure out how to use the elevator, I had to actually look it up). If you want to play it like a proper point and click the VGA version seems to offer that instead.

The story itself is really sleazy, but that is something you willingly sign up for when playing one of these so I can't really complain about it.

The annoying part of the game is the quiz at the beginning to start the game to check if you are old enough to play it. It might have been a good idea at the time (even even then probably not because if you are determined enough you could just get it by trail and error) but nowadays it just results you having to look up a bunch of things you would have no way of knowing. Especially if you weren't even born when the game was released and are not from the US.

I only played the original (not the VGA) version of the game and except it running in a small window on the top left of the screen it ran without any issues on Linux with Proton (7.0-6).