Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude

If you're willing to forgive its brain-dead gameplay and occasionally frustrating design, Magna Cum Laude is a hysterically entertaining romp through the world of wacky sexual hijinks.

An extremely well-written script. I constantly found myself laughing, tears of joy pouring heartily from my eyes (slight exaggeration). Still, the gameplay is boring and repetitive, and there’s virtually no replay value.

As an adventure or puzzle game, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude falls short...The titillating moments certainly deserve some credit for helping maintain your interest here, but it's the game's humor that's the real star and, ultimately, the only reason to keep playing once the allure of polygonal boobies has worn thin.

Is Leisure Suit Larry crass? Yes. Vulgar? You bet. Immature? Of course. Funny? Downright hilarious. If you're looking for a video-game romp with a lot of off-colour and racy humour, you've hit the bull's-eye.

If you're a Larry fan from way back, Magna Cum Laude takes the series into a pleasing new direction. But it needs a greater variety of challenges to be more appealing.

Simplistic gameplay aside, the game is honestly funny when it’s not being too lowbrow. Well, even when it’s lowbrow there are still quite a few amusing moments.

If you’ve ever wanted to be a part of a collegiate sex comedy, now’s your chance. Just bring along your patience for the repetitive mini games and numerous load screens.

Essentially a pornographic playground, it's proof that games don't necessarily have to be about sport, war or goblins.

As a showcase for adolescent high-jinks and a censor-pushing barrage of four-letter words, Larry succeeds as well as the average episode of Jackass; as a video game, it's a lackluster sequel in a series that once relied more on innuendo than on crude references and penis jokes.

Insulting to the fans of the previous games. It is full of senseless vulgar and crappy models. It does have some comedic moments but there are times when it just doesn’t cut it. The graphics aren’t the greatest and since it’s a game based upon sex one would think the models would be a bit better looking.

While a very hilarious game, is not much of a successor to the LSL crown. The original LSL games were true, unabashed adventure games that required intelligence, wit and time to work through. The fact the game also featured a boatload of comedy about getting laid was just a bonus - the LSL games were fun to PLAY. LSL:MCL is nothing of the sort.

It has to be said though – as a game, LSL is pretty thin. The mini-games are weak and become pretty repetitive. Happily though, the bawdy comedy that plays out while you’re going through the motions, especially during the conversations, do make it all worthwhile.

One thing that can definitely be said here is that the game is funny, and it will provide some good laughs along the way while you are playing it.

A bit like a cross of "Parappa the Rapper" and the film "Animal House." The sleazy humor is fun for a while but gameplay can get repetitive.

It's amusing for about 30 minutes, then you realize you're doing the same tedious tasks repeatedly to progress through an uninspired storyline filled with jokes that aren't really very funny.

If all you want is a shallow collection of mini-games centered around a raunchy, comedic storyline, then Magna Cum Laude is your game.

Being a fan of the series it hurts to see the Leisure Suit Larry franchise brought up to date like this, a lot more thought and effort was needed instead of just relying on the boobs.

It's like scoring with a random co-ed after a night spent projectile vomiting with your frat buddies. [Dec 2004, p.89]

The one point of Magna Cum Laude that stands out is the fairly hysterical humor of the game. Borrowing pages from movies such as "Animal House," Magna Cum Laude has some of the funniest lines ever uttered in a video game. The characters and the dialog bring unprecedented humor to the consoles.

Because of the shallow gameplay, I can't imagine anyone playing through this game once, much less multiple times. It's a simplistic romp into gaming nostalgia that won't appeal to anyone but the most retro of the retro-gamers out there.

Even though the mini-games are too common and unnecessarily repetitive, and the random cartoon nudity isn't worth the effort, the wonderfully insane dialogue and characters are worth taking a trip to Larry's collegiate adventure.