Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
Cover art for Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
Developer(s)	Team 17
Publisher(s)	Codemasters
Series	Leisure Suit Larry
Engine	Unreal Engine 3
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Release date(s)	Xbox 360 & Microsoft Windows EU 20090327March 27, 2009 NA 20090331March 31, 2009 AU 20090430April 30, 2009 PlayStation 3 EU 20090415April 15, 2009 AU 20090430April 30, 2009 NA 20090512May 12, 2009
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Rating(s)	BBFC: 18 ESRB: Mature 17+ OFLC: MA15+ PEGI: 16+ USK: 16
Media/distribution	DVD, Blu-ray Disc
System requirements Windows XP/Vista 3.2GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor or equivalent, AMD Athlon 64 processor 1 GB of RAM NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or ATI RADEON X1300 Video Card 6GB Hard Disk Space

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust is a video game published by Codemasters for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows and Mobile phone which was released on 27 March 2009. It is 10th game in the series, and the first Leisure Suit Larry game to be released for seventh generation consoles. It was announced on January 17, 2008 in a press release. The official debut trailer was released on February 16, 2008 via Gametrailers.com.

Gameplay

Box Office Bust has open-world sand-box gameplay including exploration, platforming, racing and puzzle-solving. As with other games in the series, it features humor, attractive women, and suggestive themes, although, unlike Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, this game does not contain nudity and sexual content despite its appeal for adult audiences. This was a decision championed by Executive Producer John Melchior, who believed that the writing and comedy were of such high caliber, the game did not require cheap gimmicks like nudity to boost sales. However, Box Office Bust contains more swearing than its predecessors.

Plot

Box Office Bust features Larry Lovage, the main character of Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, whose uncle Larry, the original Larry Laffer calls upon his assistance at his movie studio (Laffer Studios), doing odd jobs and trying to uncover a mole from a rival studio who is attempting to sabotage Laffer Studios.

The storyline was written by Allen Covert of Happy Madison Productions, and the voiceover cast includes Josh Keaton as Larry Lovage, Jeffrey Tambor as Larry Laffer, Jay Mohr, Patrick Warburton, Shannon Elizabeth and Carmen Electra. Artie Lange and Dave Attell were also featured as voice characters.

Development

On July 29, Activision Blizzard announced that as part of a business consolidation strategy following the completion in July 2008 of a merger with Vivendi Games, a number of games under development, including Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, would not be published at this time. This is the second Larry game that was created entirely without any input from original Larry game designer and developer Al Lowe, though the character Big Al is a homage to Lowe.

Artie Lange, who voiced Big Al, said he was paid for his brief contribution. He has also stated that this installment has a higher budget than all the predecessors.

Reception

Following its release on March 27, 2009, Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust was universally panned by critics. Chris Watters of GameSpot described the game as "Mindless, repetitive gameplay and a truly atrocious sense of humor help Leisure Suit Larry live up to its name—it's a total bust" while Charles Onyett expressed his opinion on his review of the game on IGN as "The lowest rating numbers here at IGN are reserved for games with nearly no redeeming qualities or interesting ideas, with next to nothing enjoyable to offer players, and which under no circumstances should be purchased by anyone. Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust is, without a doubt, one of those games". Gametrailers.com gave the game a 2.3 out of 10, making it the lowest rated game on the website. Official Xbox Magazine gave it a 1.0, calling it an "astroturd" of a game. OXM also stated it was their worst rated game of the year so far, as well as going as far to say that it was the worst game on the Xbox 360 console thus far. Al Lowe thanked VU Games on his website for keeping him away from what he called "the latest disaster". In PlayStation: The Official Magazine's September 2009 issue, PTOM joked about punishing a PS3 owner's dog by making it play the Leisure Suit Larry game. The dog had urinated on his owner's PS3, which surprisingly still works^{[citation needed]}. Gamespot nominated the game for "Flat Out Worst Game of the Year" in 2009. It "lost" to Stalin vs. Martians. Giant Bomb gave the game the Worst Game of the Year Award in 2009. Australian television show Good Game awarded it to be the Worst Game of 2009. Screwattack.com gave the game a SAGY award for the Worst Multiconsole game of 2009.

External links

• Official website