A couple of weeks back, I did a quick retrospective of Sierra‘s “adult” adventure game series, Leisure Suit Larry. I remember how, being a pre-teen and teenager, how “dangerous” these games are as these weren’t meant for underaged kids such as myself and how funny the games were. In that retrospective, I mentioned how I believe the Leisure Suit Larry games actually got better as the number of entries went. But, some time after writing that, I realized I only meant the sixth and seventh entries. I really couldn’t say the same for Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work.

Why? Because I don’t really anything about it!

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I did have some vague memories of playing it when it was initially released. I remembered Larry (hehe); Larry Laffer was now going all over the world trying to find a new female host for a new television series by being his old lecherous self. I remember Passionate Patti, Larry’s flame from Leisure Suit Larry, was now working undercover for the FBI for… some reason. I also remember them skipping Leisure Suit Larry 4 (the legendary “missing floppies” entry) because Al Lowe, the series creator, never intended the Leisure Suit Larry series to go beyond the third game as he pictured it to be a trilogy.

But the biggest thing I remember is how Larry Laffer and Passionate Patti were not together! Leisure Suit Larry 3 ended with both Larry and Patti now, in a meta joke, now working at Sierra with Larry programming the very first Leisure Suit Larry game. Both were happy after finally finding true love. But, at the start of Leisure Suit Larry 5, Larry was working as a coffee boy and tape degausser and Patti working at a dead-end nightclub. What the heck happened? I guess it’s all explained in Leisure Suit Larry 5? Well, since I don’t really remember how to finish the game, I decided to go to GOG.com and load up my copy of the game to see what happened.

By the way, I will be giving some SPOILERS in this review to this game that is over three decades old. If you haven’t played it or don’t know how to solve maybe one or two of the puzzles, you might want to stop reading. Anyway, you have been warned for SPOILERS!

First off, I have to talk about Leisure Suit Larry 5’s graphics. Rather, I like to focus on the art direction. It’s just weird! While I understand the more cartoony direction Al Lowe was going for as this is a silly game, it doesn’t quite work here. Also, everyone looks flat, which is a little weird in a “3D” adventure games such as this. There’s also a weird inconsistency when they zoom in on Larry and Patti as they sometimes look like totally different characters during these portions.

There’s also something weird with the way the game plays on my computer, at least. I played the version that was included in the Leisure Suit Larry Greatest Hits and Misses found in GOG since that was the one I purchased so many years ago. I’m a pretty fast reader so I usually can read through a dialog box quickly. This is why I click through them pretty quickly. However, there were potions of the game, like near the end, when you can’t click to go to the next text box!

This is especially maddening because, like near the end, there’s a lot of annoying sound effects. And since you can’t skip through the text box without skipping the entire scene and bypassing the next message, I felt I was stuck in that noisy cacophony of a scene for what felt like ages! Not sure if this is a problem with the copy on GOG or if it was an issue with the game way back then. Still, that was annoying!

I also didn’t like how you’re kind of forced to succeed in Leisure Suit Larry 5. If that sounds confusing to you, let me explain. In old-school adventure games, especially games put out by Sierra, there are times when you’re going to get stuck because you don’t have the right item on hand. Or you have to make sure to explore the open world to look for a clue to help you proceed. Or you’ll do something stupid, leading to your character dying or come across a face worth that death. That didn’t seem to be the case with Leisure Suit Larry 5 and that just seems against what these games are supposed to do.

Instead of one big open world, Larry and Patti explore small individual areas. In Larry’s case, it would be the small section of a city and, for Patti, it would be in a couple of office buildings. All of the items you need to “solve” the area will be in that area or in the limo before you get to that area. The thing is, even if you don’t have the required item, the game will just let you complete your quest! For example, when controlling Larry and you arrive at New York to “interview” Michelle Milken, the best way to “succeed” is to have found a wallet in the limo that brought you to the location and give her the contents.

But what if you didn’t get the wallet? Are you screwed? Is there another way to get some more big wads of cash? No need! All you need to do is to keep talking to Michelle! You’ll still get the same outcome at the end with no extra work on your part! That just doesn’t seem right!

There also doesn’t seem to be any way to die in Leisure Suit Larry 5. At least, there weren’t any really obvious ways to get to a premature game over screen from my playthrough. And believe me, I tried! Once again, a part of the fun of these old Sierra adventure games is finding ways to kill off your character. This is another example of the game forcing your to succeed despite your best efforts to the contrary. I know this seems counterintuitive but, for old-school adventure gamers such as myself, finding all the creative ways to get killed is like going through all the side quests in a modern RPG. You don’t have to do them but doing them is part of what makes these games fun!

The only real saving grace of Leisure Suit Larry 5 for me is the humor. Al Lowe does lowbrow and crass humor really well and I will acknowledge that, a lot of the time, it may not go over in this day of age. But, if you’re like me who grew up at the time, you can appreciate the jokes and gags. There’s also a lot of meta humor as both Larry and Patti know they’re in a video game and behave as such. Even so, I do think the laughs are less here than in other entries.

Despite being a “classic” Sierra adventure, I do think Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work, feels more like it falls in the “miss” category in the Leisure Suit Larry Greatest Hits and Misses collection. Like with Leisure Suit Larry 4, there’s just something missing here.

Have you played Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work? How would you rank it in the Leisure Suit Larry franchise? Let me know in the comments section below!