Video game tester career

Game 29 Leisure Suit Larry III When it Rains it Pours

Larry Laffer Journal Entry 1: “Why do these things always have to happen to me!? Just when I thought I’d finally found true love and settled down, surrounded by beauty, everything suddenly went to hell! It’s bad enough that Kalalau has decided to divorce me, but the fact she has done so to be with a woman makes it extra painful. To make matters even worse, her father terminated my position at Natives Inc., leaving me with nothing a day after I had everything. Despite all of this misfortune, I’m choosing to see all of this in a positive light. I’m a single man on an island resort that’s filled with women looking for action. It’s time for the real Larry to step up and show all these chicks what they’ve been missing! Im back baby!!!”


Well I’m under way!  I’ve played an hour of Leisure Suit Larry III and it’s clear that Al Lowe really did return the series to its roots after a strangely sexless first sequel. There’s already been plenty of nudity and sexual comments, and I’ve even managed to have sex while simply exploring the island. Speaking of Nontoonyt Island, things have changed a lot since I ended the plot of the evil Dr. Nonookee. The villagers that had appeared so primitive when I first arrived united to form Natives Inc. and developed the island into a tourist attraction. Apparently they all took courses in business management, public administration, sales and marketing, and then began building a full scale resort, resulting in a beachfront packed with hotels. It appeared there was going to be much more to explore this time around, but before I could do that, I was going to have to prove that I was old enough to play this game at its raunchiest!


Just like the first game in the series, before you can play Larry III, you need to answer a bunch of adult related questions. However, rather than simply passing or failing, this time the game adjusts its adult themes depending on how many questions you get right. Unfortunately, the same problem that made it so difficult to pass the age verification in the first game came into play here. While I did know the answers to three out of five questions I was confronted with on my first attempt, the others meant absolutely nothing to me. I don’t know who Spiro Agnew is, so I don’t know whether he was a linebacker for Green Bay, a billionaire Greek shipping tycoon, an ex-con or pardoned. I also don’t know which of Nik-L-Nip, Vita-Cola, Moxie or Mr. Pibb was not a carbonated drink! Any question relating to sex or dating are straight forward, but those relating to events of the time or strictly American past times or products are impossible to answer for an Australian like me playing in 2012. Luckily, on my third attempt I got five very simple questions, allowing me to play at the Totally Raunchiest level.


With that out of the way, I appeared on a lookout above the trees and buildings of the island. I was informed that I hold the position of Vice-President of Marketing for Natives Inc., and that I have a lovely home with my wife Kalalau (who I married at the end of Larry 2). There was a plaque in the middle of the lookout which stated “On this site, the great hero of our people, Larry Laffer, singlehandedly saved our island from our mortal enemy, the evil Dr. Nonookee.” Well, it’s nice to be appreciated! (2 points) The only other items of interest on the lookout were two pairs of binoculars. One of them was broken and unusable, but looking through the other one revealed a large breasted woman getting unchanged in her home. I watched as she turned off the light, lowered the blinds a touch, and then took off her clothes. I wondered what the purpose of the exhibition was, but it turns out there wasn’t one. Nothing else happened and I wasn’t able to look through the binoculars again. It appears to me that Mr Lowe was simply making a statement that this game was going to have plenty of nudity in it! (2 points)


Departing the lookout, I reappeared in a jungle area, where there were a few different ways I could exit the screen. Thankfully, a large pointing finger appeared to tell me where I should go, which I imagine is to control the introductory parts of the story. Taking that path brought me to my home, where Kalalau could be seen relaxing in a spa, with a second person mostly obscured by a pillar. I announced confidently that “your lover boy Larry is home!”, but didn’t get the response I’d hoped for. Kalalau informed me that I don’t live in this house any more as she’d found a new lover. According to the laws of her people, all that is required for a divorce to be filed is to walk three times around the bed, which she’d apparently done many times over the years. Larry questioned who her new lover was and she responded with the name Bobbi. This Bobbi turned out to be the other person in the spa, as well as an Amazonian Harley-riding former-cannibal lesbian slot-machine repairwoman. It appeared that absolutely anything was better than remaining married to Larry Laffer!


With the conversation over, I focussed on my surroundings. There appeared no way to enter the property, but the mailbox caught my attention. Strangely, when I tried to open the mailbox I was told it was a “Good idea. You might try that again later.” Maybe I will! I left my old home with my tail between my legs and re-entered the jungle. It was at this point that I opened up Excel and started mapping out the island. With so many exits off each screen, I wanted to make sure I covered them all off and knew how to get back to a particular location. After taking the bottom right exit, I appeared in yet another jungle area, but here something rather humorous occurred. Larry began wondering what he should do with his life now that he’d lost everything again. “I suppose I could go into mourning. Mope around all day, sit in my room, rent lots of videos, things like that...or, I could give up women, remain celibate forever, enter the ministry or something.” None of that would be very Larry Laffer like though would it?!


Larry then realised that the resort was a perfect place to be as a single man, with hundreds of women seeking nothing more than a good time! “Yeah, that’s it! I’ve had it with monogamy, marriage, long-term relationships, commitment. My life’s new goal will be to allow as many women as possible to enjoy me while they can!” At this point an empty phone booth mysteriously rose out of the ground, and then Larry stepped inside, quickly switching from his beach holiday attire into the classic white leisure suit of old. The screen shook as this world changing event took place, and the words “He’s back!” appeared in huge font while the music climaxed. “Look out, girls! Just when you thought it was safe to dive back into the gene pool, the original swinger is at it again!” Of course all of this wasn’t just hilariously funny, it was also the perfect way to re-establish Larry’s original goal. A goal that made the first game so memorable! To get Larry laid with all the odds against him!


Since the map felt like it was going to push on to the east, I decided to explore all the areas accessible around the game’s starting position before moving on in that direction. I went back to the original jungle screen and took the lowest left exit. I came across a pretty strange site. There was a park bench perfectly placed in front of a TV, with pink lamps hanging down from who knows where. I was able to turn the TV on, but the picture kept flickering. Any attempts to watch it were met with “too bad this island doesn’t have cable.” I sat on the bench for a while and watched TV, but nothing happened. I can only assume whatever is supposed to happen here happens later in the game or when I have a particular item. I left the screen and passed through the jungle once again. This time I typed “look” while I was there, just to make sure there wasn’t something else in the location that I’d missed so far. A part of the description caught my attention. “A beautiful, specimen granadilla tree grows here.”


That seemed a little too specific for a jungle description, so I typed “look at tree”. A got a brief description of the gray tree, and was then informed of “a beautiful piece of wood” that was sitting beneath it. I picked it up and looked at it, finding that my “granadilla is hard and black”! I’ve since read all the articles in the tourist manual, and one of them talks about granadilla wood being great for wood carving, and that it often suggests the shape it will take under the carver’s knife. It’s not difficult to figure out what shape my piece of wood will take when the time comes. (2 points) Before exploring further, I decided to try my luck back at Larry’s mailbox. This time there was something in there, and it turned out to be a new credit card I’d ordered a while back. What a stroke of luck! (20 points) With all the locations to the west explored, I made my way back to the jungle screen where the phone booth had appeared.

Taking the lower left exit brought me to a very strange sight indeed! A giant whale with a huge round entrance for a mouth! This was Fat City, the island’s famous health spa. I entered the spa, and took a look around. There were three doors inside, but all of them could only be opened with a keycard that I didn’t have in my possession. I struck up a conversation with Robin, the guy behind the counter, but couldn’t get much out of him. Asking about becoming a member at first looked promising, but he then told me that “our membership roster is full right now, but we’ll be starting a big campaign next fall.” Robin then promised to call me when there was a vacancy, but since I didn’t have a phone and hadn’t given him my number, I couldn’t see how that was ever going to happen. After satisfying myself that there was nothing else I could do at Fat City just yet, I left.


Pushing east, I came upon a fountain at some steps leading to the island casino, but that clearly wasn’t where the game wanted me to go. Once again a large flashing pointing finger demanded I take the path in the lower left edge of the screen, which apparently would lead me to my office. As if the flashing pointing finger wasn’t enough, the game then tried to convince me that this was indeed a very good path to take in not particularly subtle ways. “You’d better hurry, Larry! You’re going to be late again and you know how much Chairman Kenneth hates tardiness.” was fairly persuasive. “Say, what about the cute little redhead in accounting? You’ve always wanted a chance to balance her figures!” was even more so! There didn’t seem to be anything I could do at the fountain, so I accepted the game’s hints and took the suggested path.


It became very clear as soon as I entered Natives Inc. that things were not going to go well. Larry’s “Another day, another dollar” comment was met with obvious doubt from David, who I assume is the company’s receptionist. He informed me that Chairman Kenneth wanted to see me in his office immediately, and while Larry tried to convince himself that the boss merely wanted to compliment him for his fantastic work, that seemed pretty unlikely. After I sat down on the only “seat” available, Kenneth launched straight into a termination speech. “Since you are no longer married to my daughter and your marketing skills are non-existent, I can’t for the life of me think of a reason why I should keep you on here!” He then introduced me to his hobby, by rolling me up into a little ball and bowling me out of his office, disappointed that he only scored a 7 with the purposely set glass bottles in the reception area. Before I knew it, I found myself outside Natives Inc., humiliated, broke, alone...


This seems a good place to end this first gameplay post as it’s really the end of the game’s drawn out introduction. The game has carefully directed me down a precise path to make sure I gain all the information I need early on to understand my full predicament. After losing my wife, house and job, I’ve ended up in exactly the same position as I started Larry 1, which is really the most ideal way to begin a game where trying to seduce and score with women is the aim. That said, I can’t really judge the game at all at this stage, as most of what has happened has been fully scripted, but I’m already enjoying myself and chuckling at the typical Al Lowe humour. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until my next post to hear all about my sexual exploits with Tawni the blonde babe on the beach. All I’ll say for now is that it was an experience that was far less titillating than it was when I was a 12 year old boy!