A good while back, I did a retro review for Sierra‘s Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work. Suffice to say, I didn’t like it all that much. There was just so many things wrong with it. Counter to other Sierra games, you couldn’t die or fail. The graphics were a little too cartoony for my taste. And there were some weird gameplay glitches I couldn’t get over. This was a big miss for Sierra and game creator Al Lowe, in my opinion.

Thankfully, Sierra and Al Lowe got their act together for Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! This brought Larry Laffer (hehe) back to his more lecherous days and brought back things like deaths. Thank god! In fact, I do think, out of all the original Leisure Suit Larry games, this nearly is my favorite game in the series.

Before we do get to the review itself, I have to mention a couple of things. First, there are going to be SPOILERS. But I do think it’s fair to do so. After all, Leisure Suit Larry 6 came out in 1993, more than three decades ago! Still, just in case you’ve been dying to play it and don’t want anything revealed, you have been warned. Second, I played the one found in the Leisure Suit Larry: Greatest Hits and Misses collection on GOG.com. Apparently, the only version available there is the CD version, which added vocal performances for everyone. This was actually refreshing for me as I played the original disc version. So, it was fun to listen to Jan Rabson‘s Larry Laffer (hehe) and Neil Ross‘ cheeky narrator.

Anyway, Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up of Slip Out! has Larry Laffer getting second place in a dating contest (where there are only two contestants). His prize is an “all paid” vacation in the La Costa Lotta health spa. While the place is crawling with many attractive girls, there is one particular girl who could technically be called the top prize: Shamara.

First off, I have to talk about a weird glitch I got while playing this version. The sound options are a mess! You can try to adjust the sounds but they don’t seem to work for me. Once I set it up to my liking, exiting from the sound menu will boost whatever channel slightly. I’m not sure if this is just an issue on my end or GOG.com’s version of the game. Whatever the case, the overall sound mixing got too loud at times, with the background music drowning out the voices. I kind of fixed it by putting the music very low but, once I exited from that menu, it would get to a level I liked. This wouldn’t be much of an issue if the game actually saved my preferences. I had to keep adjusting this sound option each time I booted the game up! It got annoying after a while.

There’s also the issue about Passionate Patti and the fact she isn’t in the game. As a Leisure Suit Larry fan, I was upset she wasn’t here in the sixth game when I first played it all those years ago. But, now that I’m older I understand why this was done. She was putting Larry in a box. If she was Larry Laffer’s true love, then why would he be going after other women? That kind of defeats the point of the Leisure Suit Larry games. I just wish we got some explanation as to what happened to Passionate Patti instead of just not being mentioned at all.

However, those seems to be the only real problems I had with the game because, everything else, was a delight! I guess Sierra reversed their decision of not dying in their games as there are multiple ways to lose in Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! While you may think dying in a video game is bad, that’s not so for a Sierra adventure game. In fact, part of the fun is finding out all the ways to get a Game Over. Some are really obvious while some can be really creative and refreshing. I did like how they implemented a Try Again option. It does take away some of the fear of getting a bad ending when you haven’t saved your game in a while. That might be a bad thing if you’re a seasoned Sierra adventurer. But for me, who just wanted to play the game and find as many deaths as possible, this was great.

The graphics is a mark improvement over the previous entry, Leisure Suit Larry 5. This time around, there’s a mix of more cartoony characters, such as our hero, Larry, Larry Laffer (hehe) and the more comedic side characters like Gary The Towel Boy. However, everyone else looks much more realistic, at least for an adventure game released in the ’90s. This does make it even funnier when a dopey looking character like Larry, Larry Laffer (hehe) actually succeeds in talking and almost succeeding with the other women.

I do have to talk about the women here as I honestly believe these are some of the best looking pixelated pictures of women in video games. This time around, actually wooing them feels like a little mini-adventure but in a big open world. Well, a big open health spa, in this case. Each one of them has something specific they want and, once you get it for them or do what they want, they’ll give you an item you need to woo Shamara to get the game’s true ending.

I really liked this concept as figuring out how to get them what each of them want has its challenges thanks you an expanding inventory. How will the soap help you? Will it be used to get Gammie what she wants? Or will it help you win over Merrily? And why do I have an orange? None of the girls need an orange now. Will they need one later? At a certain point, things just seem to click in your brain and solving which item does what for what girl makes so much sense.

This does mean Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! feels a little on the easy side. While I did play this game before, I only had a few vague memories of the puzzles. So, it somewhat felt like this was a new adventure for me. I did get stuck a couple of times and I did “brute force” my way through some puzzles. What I mean by that is I just tried clicking on random things and tried to combine items that had no sense to work together. I mean, dental floss and a tiny cloth? It makes sense in retrospect but it does feel illogical.

I do have to say this isn’t the raunchiest Leisure Suit Larry game out there. There’s nary any actual nudity here but there are a lot of risque moments. But I will say it’s one of the funniest. Sure, a lot of the gags can be considered offensive as there is a lot of chauvenisitic mentality. But, to me, that’s a big part of what makes a Leisure Suit Larry game a Leisure Suit Larry game. I guess if you’re easily offended or you were born later than the ’90s, you might want to steer away.

You are kind of missing out, though. Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! is not just one of the best games in the series but a really good adventure game as well. I still think Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail! is the best game but this one? This comes (pun intended?) pretty close!

Have you played Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out? What’s your favorite raunchy video game? Let me know in the comments section below!