Review – Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry

My first foray into “adult” gaming was back in 2004 when Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude launched. My brother being 18 at the time was old enough to rent it and I got to see my first set of video game boobs. While that was appealing enough for 14 year old me, 28 year old me needs a bit more. So getting the opportunity to review Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry (from here on called WDDD) was interesting to see if there’s more to it then boobs. So does Larry have what it takes to survive in today’s changing social climate? Let’s take a look.

Larry

The best bar in town is still around.

For those that aren’t hip to the Leisure Suit Larry games there are actually two Larrys. Magna Cum Laude featured Larry Lovage while the originals star Larry Laffer. WDDD continues the story of Larry Laffer whose last game was back in 2013 when it made a comeback with Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded; prior that the last game was in 1996. That brings us to 2018 with WDDD and a lot of things have changed socially and in gaming.

WDDD starts with Larry waking up underground and has to find his way out of the sewer sporting an all new tall and lanky look. Once he emerges, conveniently next to his favorite bar Lefty’s, he realizes he is far into the future. During an awkward talk with a local hipster in Lefty’s dive bar, Larry is bombarded with things he no longer understands or recognizes. Larry needs to learn all the modern tech: PiPhones, Farcebook, Timber, Instacrap, and a popular driving service Umber. After finding a prototype PiPhone in Lefty’s bathroom, he is taken to Prune’s headquarters where he must return it to owner Bill Jobs (queue the BJ jokes). Falling in love with Bill Jobs assistant Faith, Larry must earn a score of 90 on Timber before Faith will even give him a chance. Larry needs to bang his way to the love of his life.

Faith

Yes Larry, that is correct.

Initially watching Larry struggle with modern times is amusing as well as the references to other pop culture 21st century things. There is of course a healthy dose of crass humor of dick, vagina, poop, throw up, sex, sex and more sex. Now, don’t get me wrong I’m all for dirty jokes especially when they mix pop culture together, but unfortunately the novelty does wear off fast and after that you’re left with a basic point a click game with a couple chuckles here and there.

Speaking of the gameplay, WDDD is a fairly simple point and click adventure that has you explore a handful of different locations with a nice variety of characters to interact with. You’ll unlock characters from Timber once you successfully fulfill a handful of fetch quests. You then get to unlock a series of risque pictures to post on your Instacrap and increase your Timber score. Essentially all you’ll be doing is exploring the same locations over and over as you collect items to use or combine. It’s a simple system that gets rather old since there is a lot of backtracking. Again, like the sex and dick jokes, the items you collect can be crude and funny, but they do lose their appeal.

Larry

Plenty of sex jokes and references.

The graphics are decent with a bright color palette and features thirty hand drawn scenes to explore. All have a nice level of detail even if the art design can make things look too basic. The cartoonish art style does allow for more adult content by giving it a playful look which could easily become creepy with a more realistic look.

The sound design has your typical 80’s porno themes as well as some relaxing tunes while you’re exploring. WDDD does feature full voice acting, but it can be very hit or miss. Some characters obviously play up their persona caricature, while others play a more serious role. My biggest issue is Larry himself. Something about his voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me, which is a problem considering he is the main character. There are frequent times where the captions don’t match what the character is saying as if the script changed after they inserted the captions. As well as spelling mistakes in the captions.

Larry

I did mention there are a ton of references, right?

Leisure Suite Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry is a simple point and click game with some decent laughs at first. It had me cracking up the first couple of hours, but it does wear off quickly once the novelty of such a crude game becomes stale. Then all you’re left with is a simple, repetitive, and at times boring point and click adventure with no other mini games in between. I will say that the jokes and nudity has been toned down from what I remember from Magna Cum Laude, but perhaps that’s my bad memory or the times we live in. Either way, $30 for this title is far too much.

Graphics: 7.0

The art direction is colorful and extremely cartoonish. It makes the adult content a bit more playful rather than creepy.

Gameplay: 5.0

Pretty standard point and click adventure game, but it’s filled with a ton of back tracking between the handful of locations.

Sound: 6.0

Every character is voice acted and it’s hit or miss. Larry is absolutely annoying to listen to. The soundtrack has a relaxing assortment of tunes along with some classic porno beats.

Fun Factor: 5.0

Once the initial potty humor starts to get stale, all you’re left with is an annoying point and click game filled with current references and a lot of penises. . . a lot of penises.

Final Verdict: 5.5

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry is available now on PC.
A copy of Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry was provided by the publisher.