Platform: PC, PS2, XB

Genre: Adventure

Publisher: Vivendi Universal

Developer: High Voltage

ETA: Fall 2004

Review: Leisure Suit Larry - Magna Cum Laude (PS2)

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Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude

When a new Larry game was announced back in October 2003, you couldn’t find the name, “Al Lowe” anywhere on the press release. (The letters were all there, but they weren’t in the right order.) If you don’t know, Al Lowe is the defacto creator of the Leisure Suit Larry series and was deeply involved in every chapter of Larry’s misadventures until Sierra sacked

him (along with many others) when Larry 8 was flushed down the toilet by the usual foresight of executive officers that rarely look beyond their next martini.

My uninformed generalizations about guys in suits aside, it looks like Al Lowe will finally be involved in the latest Larry Game, Magna Cum Laude (MCL).

According to Lowe’s official site, www.allowe.com, the team working on MCL had experienced “considerable turnover” – no doubt due to some poor financial numbers in 2003 that resulted in firings up and down Vivendi Games. Lowe also notes on his

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website that Eric Hayashi, Executive Producer on the project, contacted him to “restart negotiations…in order to get me involved.” With all that, it still doesn’t say if Lowe is officially involved. Yet.

Here are the general details:

Larry is a typical college student – he lives in a dorm, has a crush on his biology professor, and goes to bars with his buddies. But when a TV dating show comes to campus, Larry gets a chance for national “exposure.” If he can show that he can make any girl on campus swoon, he will become a campus legend. Follow Larry’s hilarious exploits and misadventures in the wackiest college story since “Animal House.”

Features:

Experience college through the eyes of America’s most lovable loser, as he tries to fit in without flunking out.

Experience the funniest, sexiest gameplay that only Leisure Suit Larry games deliver.

Explore the whole college campus and adjoining parts of town in full 3D.

Recreate hilarious college moments, Larry style, from streaking across campus to frat parties to flirting with freshmen girls.

Create custom conversation on the fly as you speak with any character in the game - be funny or fresh if you like.

Get a full course-load of mini-games, including Quarters, Photography, Trampoline, Bartending, and more!

Find secrets and surprises as you uncover the plot and interact with different girls!

Full of outrageous humor and raucous game-play based on comedies like “American Pie.”

The “Larry” in the case has been reported to be Larry Laffer’s nephew. While this is sure to get diehard Larry fans miffed, judging by the available movies and screens, they’ll be different in name (and hair color) only.

The very thought that Larry will show up on a console, is staggering to PC gamers. After all, Larry’s subject matter has always been “Mature” – at least in a snickering way. Larry games have always been light on violence (unless it was violence perpetrated on Larry) and heavy on cartoony cleavage. For this reason, I wouldn’t expect MCL to show up on GameCube, but watch for it on Playstation 2, PC, and Xbox.

Magna Cum Laude is still many months from release so everything could change by then. Hopefully, there will be more to report after E3 2004.

- Omni

(February 5, 2004)