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Leisure Suit Larry's Maker On Wedgies v. Bullets
simoniker writes "Al Lowe, the creator of lounge lizard Leisure Suit Larry, has been talking about his comeback game with new developer iBase Studios, Sam Suede, asking why games nowadays are too violent, and revealing of his new title: "there's going to be guards, but instead of slitting their throats, you'll give them a wedgie." He also asks: 'Let me put this way, the shelf is full of racing games and shooters, RPGs and action games. Where are the comedies?' Well, where are they?"
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I think many nerds will think this game is offensive. I mean, they are the main victims of wedgies...
Seems like blatently dangerous and illegal activity is endorsed by the industry (shooting people; blowing things up; etc) - while perfectly legal stuff (wasn't the sex in the GTA mod consentual?) ends up being shunned and forbidden.
What kind of lesson is that?
If I were making the rules; game rating should he based on the illegality of the activities in the game -- if there's murder or similar - keep it away from my kids. If it's minor misdemeanors (like this new game sounds like) that's better.
Funny Games
Metal Arms - Glitch in the System
Conker's Bad Fur Day
The Bard's Tale (PS2, XBox, PC)
Metal Gear 3 - Snake Eater (very comical commentary, involving a box)
These are just off the top of my head.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Comedy is hard.
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
Comedy is hard,
blowing shit up is (relatively) easy.
A joke is only really funny the first couple times you hear it, but often killing the enemy gets even more fun the more times you do it. So naturally they make the games you'll play over and over.
The whole "quest to get laid" was fantastic, and the censored bar moving up and down was pretty damn clever.
Sure, some of the jokes were a bit hacky, but all in all I thought the game was clever and the whole meta-commentary ("it's hard to find the right girl, and when you do she steals all your money") was pretty clever as well.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
...but maybe that says more about me than it does about the game...
Corporate Jenga: You take a blockhead from the bottom and you put him on top...
If the definition of "comedy" being used is "includes wedgies", I think I'd rather not have any "comedy games", thanks.
Now, a game that aimed at a grown-up audience and had a sophisticated sense of humor, that I could get into. But "sophisticated" is not the first word that jumps to mind when I think of Lowe's portfolio, so that's probably too much to hope for.
Read my blog.
The LSL games were big hits if they sold 20,000 units. Games today have to sell millions to be considered sucessful. Targetting the larger market means they aim for the lowest common denominator.
Those Sierra adventure games were and still are my favourite games.
Destroy All Humans, violent? yes, but still funny.
Spyder
The reason why there are no comedy games on the shelf is simple, IMHO. It's because they offer 0 replay value. When was the last time you picked up Leisure Suit Larry for an additional play-through, or any other game that does its best to be funny? Now, when was the last time you decided to go through the Halo campaign again, on another difficulty level perhaps? Granted, Monkey Island has a lot of replayability - but that's because it's such a superbly made action adventure game that it's impossible not to enjoy it another time. But it's not for the humor. The nature of comedy is such that it gets old quickly, and innovation is everything. Racing games and FPS's don't suffer from these problems.
I'll tell you where. In your pants! It's a fucking joke down there!
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
Where are the new Sam'n'Max games?
Full Throttle?
Maniac Mansion/Day of the Tentacle?
Monkey Island?
Lucas isn't good for much any more, but he's got this IP in his vault and isn't doing a fucking thing with it. Instead he's producing uber-violent, xenophobic, pornomythic rubbish for the big screen and grubbing for tie-ins.
Or this IRC chat?
Not to mention the many Slashdot posts where you keep going on about it over and over again.
For the love of Gaming God, play Psychonauts. If you have, and didn't find it funny, I'm surprised and saddened.
Like how he'd get sick and turn colors (eventually plaid) and die if you slept with the hooker and didn't use a rubber. That was funny.
Not only was this scene funny, but playing as a 13-year-old it really helped drive home the point that condom use was a good idea.
I'm not saying it is the duty of video games to teach sex ed, nor am I one of those "video games are the root of child violence" people, however, I certainly see value in this sort of thing. Speaking for myself, I have learned stuff from all sorts of goofy sources, and more often than not, entirely accidentally.
barack to the future?
When the first Leisure Larry game was published, I was working as a programmer for a software house. The game was awesome, especially because it had EGA graphics. But the funniest thing about the game happened just after we got it, when we had a big opening of our new office and all our biggest clients were there. One of the most nerdy of my colleagues used the game to demonstrate the awesome powers of modern PCs to our clients, who were all huddling around his PC while he was explaining to them: "...so there is this hooker, see, who I want to fuck, but first I must get a condom..." No idea if this influenced future business.
Planned comedy is very hard to pull off unless you've already got a lot of skill in setting up jokes and comedic timing. Unfortunately, those aren't skills people acquire in the normal day-to-day of game development. You really need someone who developed their comedic skills on their own and also loves and understands games.
Can you imagine, with all the rushed art and programming that goes on in game development, how well humor would fare? Not well. You may have a joke that works well with the development team for some reason, but just completely falls flat on the audience. In the end, the publisher is going to want the game done and not really worry about whether it's funny or not.
The best example of a funny game recently is Psychonauts, by Double-fine. The dialog in that game was from Tim Schafer (Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle) and Erik Wolpaw (from Old Man Murray - http://www.oldmanmurray.com./ The game was often delayed and was even cut from Microsoft's lineup because Schafer was hard to work with. It was eventually released by Majesco and despite lot's of great reviews, it wasn't exactly a smash hit. The humor is top-notch, but in the end, if people don't like the game and it doesn't have a huge publisher backing it, it's not going to sell.
...and this is where you missed the boat. What we need to accept, in reality, is that being 1) willing and 2) able does not make you 3) ready.
The fact is that teens 1) Wanna and 2) Gonna so we had better darn well make them 3) ready.
Our options are not stopping them from having sex or not, it's making them prepared for when they have it.
On the one hand you're arguing that teenagers are too immature to have sex. On the other hand, you're arguing that they should be mature enough to know not to have sex. Huh? They're KIDS. They're raging balls of insecurity glued together by drunken hormones and a throbbing fire in their loins. That's why they do incredibly stupid, dangerous, and mind-blowingly weird things. That's why they're not mature enough to have sex. That's why they're not mature enough to refrain from having sex. So that's why the way we protect them is by teaching them how to have sex responsibly, not to pretend that they won't until some point in the unknown future when they're magically "ready".
And women should be taught how to put a condom on a guy. Maybe the person they're with isn't mature enough to know how. And if they're not mature enough to know how to put on a condom, they're certainly not mature enough to exhibit the self-restraint to keep it in their pants. A girl should know how to put a condom on a guy every bit as much as a guy should know what schedule the girl is on for her birth control pills. And they should feel not just compelled but also responsible for the decision. At the risk of sounding corny, a condom isn't effective because it goes on one person, it's effective because it goes between two people. Sure, the guy should be responsible enough to put one on. And if they're not, the woman should put one on for him, while teaching him proper technique and taunting him for his inexperience and lack of maturity.
It doesn't matter whose fault it is. It doesn't matter what kids "should" and "shouldn't" do. Just be safe. And keep them safe. And teach them to be safe.
The ______ Agenda