By Gaetano Prestia
One can’t help but wonder why Codemasters decided to snag this game from the Activision Blizzard merger last year. Surely they played the game before they decided to bring it on board. There is no way any person ever in the history of the entire human race could find anything even remotely enjoyable about Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust. That’s because it sucks. It sucks more than….OK no, I’m not going to stoop to Larry’s level and put in a whole bunch of lame sexual jokes just to get your attention. I’ll just say that this game sucks, blows and bends all over itself. That’s how bad it is.
You play as Larry Lovage who is the nephew of the original Larry. Your goal is to help him stop a plan to torpedo a movie studio. In the process, you work your way through a whole hoard of sandbox levels, engaging in terrible puzzles and goals and being subjected to pointless crude dribble that isn’t even funny. The game might try to shock you, but after the first two jokes about genitals, you’ll probably want to turn the volume down in fear of actually feeling embarrassed for the developers of this heap of junk. Box Office Bust is too politically incorrect, too crude, too rude and too focused on trying to make you laugh at jokes about sex. This kind of direction might have worked ten years ago, but not now.
What really sucks about this game is that it’s actually pretty long. Who would have thought that a game would actually be criticized for being so long? The truth is that if you actually sit through the entire game, you’re doing your mind an incredible injustice. That’s because throughout the time you’re playing this game, you could be subjecting your mind to much better games.
The hand-to-hand combat is gag-worthy, there are stealth missions that are designed terribly and the platforming elements are unpolished to say the least. This title feels like a game that is still early in development, yet it’s available in stores and sold for $50. That’s $50 too much.
The gameplay as a whole is ruined completely by a camera system that is terribly wonky. As you progress through the game the levels become more challenging, mostly because there’s more on screen and the camera fails to stay still and position itself properly behind Larry. Your best bet is to steer clear of any solid object that is taller than Larry, because the camera will start to spin wildly until you move away from it. Couple this with the fact that the handling of Larry is frustratingly inconsistent and you have a controlling system that makes playing this game a chore.
Worst of all is that Larry has a health system that seems to totally disregard any of the basic health fundamentals we’ve seen in pretty much every other platforming game this generation. Not only can Larry die after falling off a small platform, but also in some missions he will fall to his death purely because the camera is having a spaz attack and you can’t direct him properly. You really have to be prepared to start each mission over and over again, if not because of Larry’s terrible controlling mechanisms, than because of the shocking camera.
The story is poorly executed, having you sit through the same character interaction over and over again, making it very difficult to look forward to what’s coming up next. How can you get excited about the next level if you know exactly how the characters are going to react? Furthermore, the dialogue is so unbelievably irritating that you risk having a seizure upon hearing it. This is not joke. It really is that bad.
The voice-actors do a terrible job, although Hollywood actors Jay Mohr and Shannon Elizabeth lead them. The dialogue is repetitive and totally unfunny, with most of the recordings sounding as though they’ve been read directly off of a sound card with no emotion or acting whatsoever. Then again, Elizabeth’s greatest acting achievement was in American Pie, so it’s not like we were expecting all that much in that regard.
A Leisure Suit Larry game wouldn’t be complete with some sort of seduction mini-game and we get that in the form of a terrible and challenge-less attempt at a conversation wheel. Larry can approach woman and try to pick them up, but no matter what you choose for him to say or the woman’s response, it almost always ends up with Larry being the lucky man. Where’s the challenge in that? What’s the point of having a mini-game if you’re never going to lose? It’s stupid.
The Final Verdict
A thesis could probably be written on how bad this game is, but it’s not even worth the effort. The gameplay sucks, the story sucks, the jokes aren’t funny and graphically it’s pretty basic and dull. It’s a budget title but it doesn’t even deserve to be classified as that. Not only should you stay away from this game, you should also move as far away from any retail outlet selling it. Think of this game as the plague – the further away from it you are, the better.
Gameplay
0.5/10
No.
Graphics
4.5/10
Decent environments, but shocking character design and a presentation that will make you want to punch someone in the spine.
Sound
3.5/10
Hollywood actors doing a terrible job. The jokes are terrible.
Value
0.0/10
No. Not worth it at all.
Overall
1.0/10