In 1988, I was a 16-year-old hacker running a late-night BBS over the phone line of a local business at which I was employed during the day. The owners had no idea that their main PC was host to a sort of lending library of software – with local folks sharing files packed in the brand new “PKZIP” format which greatly speeded up the uploading and downloading over the already blazing-fast 2400 baud modem I had installed. Every morning I would log into my BBS server, and quickly unpack all the new files to see what new goodies had been shared. One of those files was Leisure Suit Larry and the Land of the Lounge Lizards.
To a 16-year-old boy, the raunchy exploits of the hapless 38-year-old virgin Larry Laffer search for love – or to simply get lucky – in the fictional town of Lost Wages, were an absolute laugh riot. Larry’s campy 1970’s disco attire and dorky double-entendre was like playing a simulation of a day in the life of Mr. Furley (from the television show Three’s Company – Google it). Leisure Suit Larry and the Land of the Lounge Lizard was by far the most-shared file on my BBS after that, as every hacker in the area-code wanted to get their chance to help Larry lose his virginity.
So here I am 30-some years later and I have somewhat reluctantly agreed to take on the review of the PS4 release of the 10th game in the Leisure Suit Larry franchise, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice. Reluctantly, because I now have a wife, three kids (20yr, 19yr, and 16yr), and a job – and a good part of me does not feel comfortable with some of the content which would aptly be described as misogynistic, crude, and outright inappropriate. However, on an objective technical level this point-and-click adventure displays a surprisingly high degree of production quality, gameplay ingenuity, and overall entertainment to sit alongside the best of the genre.
Wet Dreams Dry Twice starts off immediately following the events of the series’ prior release Wet Dreams Don’t Dry (which I didn’t play), and even with the rather lengthy and detailed intro setup in which Larry is informed of the past events by a local storyteller, I found myself a bit lost.
What I did glean from the discussion was that in the prior game Larry had at some point magically transported through time – from the late 1980’s to the current day. He finds himself embroiled in some sort of schism with the folks heading a corporation called Prune (i.e. Apple) the makers of the PiPhone (again, think Apple), somehow bringing him to the tropical land of Cancúm (yuk, yuk) in search of love from Prune’s CEO Faith, which eventually leads to Larry mucking everything up and the beloved Faiths’ unfortunate demise.
Oh, and Larry’s getting married.
Yes, Larry is reminded that he is being forced to marry the daughter of Cancúm’s tribal leader. All the while he still pines for his object of love (or is it lust?) Faith, for whom he keeps a ofrenda-style shrine in his hut. It’s in gathering and lighting a candle to add to Faith’s shrine that Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice introduces the gamer to the unique inventory crafting system – using blueprints to combine loot to make tools to perform actions. It’s also where you are introduced to the PiPhone’s camera, which comes in really handy during the later stages of gameplay. The PiPhone also comes with Larry’s virtual personal assistant Pi, who tries to keep Larry in check with his always-inappropriate attempts at humor.
Larry quickly decides that his fate is not with the people of Cancúm, so he escapes from the island and sets off in search of Faith. What follows is a story that includes a tribe of cannibalistic women, and a very determined Prune replacement CEO, Mr. Wang, who is dead-set on capturing Faith to use her coding skills for his own evil plans. The gameplay centers around interacting with the objects and the characters within each level to direct dialog and solve puzzles all with the purpose of finding Faith and thwarting Mr. Wang’s nefarious plans.
True to its legacy, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice utilizes traditional point-and-click gameplay, and overall it translates quite well to the PS4 controller. Of particular note is the game’ option to use the controller’s shoulder buttons to highlight all the interactive elements within the level – this greatly reduces the common point-and-click frustration of having to blindly pixel-hunt each area. Another great addition is the ability to double-click on objects and areas to skip the walking animations – which often seem to bog down point-and-click adventures. I can think of a few of my favorite point-and-click franchises that would benefit from either of these options (Broken Sword – I’m looking at you, my old friend).
As I mentioned earlier, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice’s humor is fairly raunchy – this is not a game that I would play with my wife or children in the room. Hell, I wasn’t comfortable playing it with them in the house for fear that someone would eavesdrop and wonder what the hell I was into. That being said, all the phallic symbolism and locker room talk aside, the overall presentation in Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice is top-notch, with excellent voice acting and colorfully-cartoony level design. There’s even a bit of classic Larry gameplay that will leave the old school gamers feeling a bit nostalgic.
I have to admit, I am quite surprised that in the day and age of the “Cancel Culture” that the folks at Crazy Bunch and Assemble Entertainment would take a risk releasing a game like Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice, especially on the consoles as they have – but Larry is a legend in gaming and he certainly deserves his day in the sun, and this game is just that.
