Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Steam Greenlight continues to make dreams come true – you know, assuming those dreams are hoisted atop the shoulders of marketing savvy, inherent appeal to a very specific audience, and sometimes implausibly fortuitous happenings, anyway. Ultimately, though, the results are usually quite nice, and this time around appears to be no different. Ten more games have been granted eternal respite in Valve’s hallowed halls, and only one of them’s technically older than many of the people who voted for it. Aside from Larry’s lizardly remake, standouts include the exquisitely handsome-looking MaK, American McGee’s Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, and the supremely Dungeon-Keeper-y War for the Overworld.

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Leisure Suit Larry’s remake, from Al Lowe and a team of Sierra Online alumni, has finished its Kickstarter. And it won. 13,855 people have taken the half a million target to over $630,000. So we’ll be getting the first Leisure Suit Larry for the third time. This time with swishy new graphics, fully voiced, and without the game trying to kill you every fifteen seconds. Check out our interview with Al Lowe for lots more details.

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We need to create a master document of old PC gaming franchises and genres and tick off everything that announces a resurrection via Kickstarter. I suspect there’ll be quite a lot of them by this time next year. Next to take a swing at recapturing past glory and the hearts and minds of elder gamers is Leisure Suit Larry creator Al Lowe, who wants to rescue his beloved sleazeball from the terrible fate he suffered in recent years. In a project called ‘Make Leisure Suit Larry come again!’ – DYSWHDT – he’s asking for $500,000 for a brand new point’n'click starring the original Larry. Well, a brand new remake at least.
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As Andrew mentions below, HD remakes serve to make games look like your rose-tinted, 1920×1080 memories of them. Trying to play through the original MDK2 now is a tough feat, so having it remade for modern, hi-def eyes is a splendid thing. But the original Leisure Suit Larry? That looks like a pile of pixels even in my most optimistic memory. EGM are reporting that Replay Games and Larry creator Al Lowe have the rights to the games and plan to give them new life. As well as start on some new adventures.

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Poor old Leisure Suit Larry has been treated like a common criminal in recent years. Literally a criminal, performing acts of sexual harassment far beyond humour and well into horror. Fortunately, original series creator Al Lowe is returning to hopefully steer the hapless wannabe sex pest back on track, having arranged a rerelease of the first game, Leisure Suit Larry In The Land Of The Lounge Lizards for modern devices. Save him, Al. Save him from hell itself.
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We continue our Gaming Made Me series with a quick visit to the brain of Richard Cobbett, who might just have been exposed to an excessive amount of point ‘n’ click as a youngster. Let’s see what he has to say…

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Console monster-bothering shooter The Grinder has just been confirmed for PC, which means you too can (re)murder a metric death-ton of zombies, vampires and werewolves next Halloween. Key features are co-op play between four dudes with specific powers, and being able to mess up rather a lot of enemies at once. A little bit Left 4 Dead and a little bit Gauntlet, by the sound of it – and, judging by the trailer below, a bit of a Clive Barker vibe.
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Found via the redoubtable GameSetWatch, this excellent project combines two disparate arms of PC gaming – retro point’n'click adventuring, and the massed peopleage of MMOs. Plus it runs in a browser, so it’s all things to all PC gamers, really. Rejoice!
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It’s time for, to paraphrase Al Lowe’s memorable line, the first videotape from his son’s new kidnappers. How are the Leeds’ very own Team 17 looking after Larry?

Wan… I mean, Thanks GameTrailers!

For the record, RPS’ favourite Gears of War advert parody remains the one a mate of mine did a year ago.

Anyone who grew up with games in the late 80s and 90s will be so very familiar with the name Al Lowe. Famous, infamous, certainly notorious, he was the creator of Leisure Suit Larry, a series of daft, entertaining, and ever-so-slightly naughty adventure games from Sierra. Lowe’s credits go far beyond Larry, working on stories and coding for many of Sierra’s seminal adventure series, but it will always be for the loveless lounge lizard that he’ll be remembered.

However, in recent years the name of Larry has been somewhat spoilt. Sierra revived the series with the execrable Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, an astonishing exercise in bigotry. Lowe had nothing to do with it, his efforts now concentrated on his own website. With the news that Larry is to return once more in Box Office Bust (well, his nephew), we spoke to Al Lowe to get his reaction to the games. We also spoke about developing the original Larry and Police Quest games, the state of the industry then and now, why Lowe is no longer developing games, and some unique insight into the reason a generation grew up solving puzzles.

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