Leisure Suit Larry Compilation

The Leisure Suit Larry games are some of the best games that came out in the late 80s and early 90s, so a collection that contains all of them is certainly welcome. However, this is not that collection.

As the box says, there are only 5 games in the collection: 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. Take note: they inexplicably only included the Larry 1 remake here, not the original Leisure Suit Larry 1. That's fine if you just care about being able to play a version of Larry 1 but for a box that seems to want to emphasize its nostalgic value, to not include the original in all its blocky-graphics glory is inexcusable. The omission is even more glaring because they manual contains a section devoted to the original AGI version of the game.

The box also lacks Leisure Suit Larry 7, which unlike the more recent (and poor) Magna Cum Laude was one of Al Lowe's originals and should have been included, especially since an earlier Larry collection released by Sierra (before the soul was sucked out of the company) DID contain that game. I was especially annoyed that Larry 7 was not included, since it's the only Larry game I've never played. There was apparently also a version of Larry 6 with voice acting that didn't make it into this box. Again, inexcusable.

As another reviewer mentioned, they spared every expense on packaging - the disc comes in a white sleeve with no manual. Actually, it comes with a sheet of paper asking you to print the manual yourself, because you'll need it for the copy protection, which was annoyingly left enabled. They also left the age verification questions in there, which would have been fine if they weren't so period specific. There are ways around them (e.g., Ctrl+Alt+X in Larry 1) but as far as I can tell they weren't documented.

I do have a few positive things to say about the collection. It's nice to see an affordably-priced collection of these games available again, since the older collections are going for $100+ on Amazon. The games also come with a nice, easy installer and are set up to work without any extra effort on the part of the player. There's very little reason for a computer-savvy player who already owns the games to buy this collection, since it just uses DOSBox to make the games work, which is available online for free. But for anyone who is not so computer-savvy, the collection requires very little effort to get set up, which is nice considering that it tends to take some effort to make these games work on modern PCs.

All in all, the games in this collection are great, but the collection itself is a little disappointing, since it actually contains less than previous Larry collections did.

(If you are one of the [relatively few] who are not running Windows XP with an administrator account, see my technical footnote in the comments for this review).

Well what can you say about LS Larry? IT is an adults only game, because of content. It is a blast to play for us 40 somethings and at this price it should be on every adult with a sick mind and dirty sense of humor's computer! The game after installation needs you to print out the rather lengthy "Books" that go with it, because you will need to access them each time in order to get into the game-remember this is not a kids game and the questions are designed to keep kids out, but any kid who is good in history could get the questions correct so as a final step, the manufactor put in this fail safe-which means adults need to keep it away from kids so that they can't also download it.

Now as to the game-poor loveable LS Larry is exactly as you remember him-a born loser with women, who with your help will over come his problem. The game is hysterical with its cheesy animations and gags. Nothing high tech here, just your basic 80's game reconfigured so it works with the newer versions of windows. It is a great game full of dumb laughs and sight gags. If you are looking for a no brainer game to play that causes laughter this is it.

Leisure Suit Larry Collection
I tried installing this collection in two computers running Windows XP Service Pack 3. The Windows Launcher did not allow starting the games. Also, if I tried to start DOSBox-0.63 by itself, the DOS window only flashed on the scree but would not stay started. So, I implemented the following fix:
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28 March 2010 Modification by me:
DOSBox-0.63 did not allow starting the (6) lsl programs when using the "SierraLauncher"
and also, DOSBox-0.63 by itself would not start. The DOS window would only
flash on the screen.
Fix: I downloaded DOSBox-0.73 (latest version) and installed at "C:\DOSBox". Then
I uninstalled DOSBox-0.63 that was installed in the "C:\Program Files\Sierra\Leisure Suit Larry Collection(TM)"
folder and pasted the new "DOSBox-0.73" folder into the Leisure Suit Larry Collection(TM) folder. In order to make the
"SierraLauncher" work, the "DOSBox-0.73" folder was renamed to "DOSBox-0.63".
Note: The lsl6 program folder has an sierraw.exe program file that will run under windows in addition to the sierra.exe
program file.
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I am happly with the collection.

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