Download Leisure Suit Larry Online

Yes, you're right; this game could also be called Leisure Suit Larry 4. It's the game that was never released - and its in our hands!

This version is a unfinished beta, probably one of a kind. Technically, it has nothing to do with Leisure Suit Larry: It just uses some of the game's elements. When Larry 3 was made, Al Lowe, the creator of the series, promised that there wouldn't be a fourth part. So Sierra made their own LSL4, without much of a connection to the original series.

The game uses the old SCI engine, and reminds one a lot of the original Leisure Suit Larry. When it's booted up in DOSbox (recommended) you get three options: Online, IPX and Quit. In Online it should, theoretically, contact the servers and take players to the lounge, where they can connect to one of the games. However, this feature doesn't seem to work, so the only way to play this is by IPX. You can play it alone or have your friends connect to you on your local network, or with programs like Hamachi. The IPX option offers both basic contacting and hosting via IP's. More on that at the end.

After starting up the server/connecting, players get to create their avatars, with names and looks. As this is a beta, there aren't many skin choices, although players can choose their character's sex, outfit, head and name (some skins are familiar from other Sierra's games - for example, Space Quest). After that, players are taken to the city of the original LSL: To the Land of the Lounge Lizards! It even features all the locations seen on the original Larry game. In fact, all the players start up outside Lefty's bar! The only difference is that there are invisible borders, so you can't walk to the muggers or to the road and get run over. Also, some major plot elements, like items and characters, have been removed. You can still visit the hooker for quick relaxation, though.

As the game looks like the original LSL, it even plays like original the LSL. All the actions are done via parser. The only difference is that when the text-box pops up on the screen, the game doesn't pause. Players can also chat with the parser, when they put the sentence in between the slashes (the / ), and "do actions" when they put the sentence in quotation marks (for example, "dances around" is shown "TheChosen dances around"). Everyone in the same room can see the chat message and actions in a small space above the parser ("TheChosen opens the door" - "TheChosen leaves the area" - "TheChosen says: Wanna see something cool?" - "TheChosen dances around doing disco duck") in quite a small font. It's still readable and it wont take much space from the screen. For long-distance chatting, players can buy radio-phones from the General Store.

So, if this is a online game, what can you do? Well, all the players start up with 98$ dollars in their wallets (Again, something that Larry Laffer starts out with in the original LSL game). They can fool around in the city, gamble in the casino and visit familiar places like the bar and disco and so forth. Gambling is of course important, as without money, you can't call a cab. However, unlike in the original LSL, you ca'nt die: Theoretically, you can bum a few dollars from other players to meet your ends. Other than taxis and gambling, players can spend money on drinks at bars or discos, buy stuff at the general store and, of course, pay the hooker.

There is new stuff, however. General store and trash cans have new items like duct tape and love serum (However, some of these objects don't have any functions. Lots of them are unfinished and just have the picture and a description) and there's new places to visit like "Lizard Park", "The docks" and "Al Alhambra's All-night Stake Restaurant". And, of course, there's an improved parser which is quite smart and understands lots of commands.

As this is a beta, there's lots of unfinished stuff here, with the whole game being the biggest example. Players can chat, visit places, gamble and use certain objects for certain effects (like cheap wine, and of course, condoms), but that's about it. There's no goal here, which is nothing new to online games, but there aren't even actual tasks to do. It feels more like a chat-program than an actual game. Who knows? Maybe the actual game was supposed to be like this. Or maybe this is why the game was eventually cancelled. In any case, it gets 3 stars as it's still quite a nice place to spend time in. And with enough imagination, it's also a nice place to roleplay!

Basically, one player starts up the server and others connect by typing in the host's IP. You can also "fake up" the IPX connection with Hamachi, so you can actually play this with your online buddies.

WARNING! A nasty feature is that if the host player crashes or quits, he crashes everyone else's computer. When you and your friends plan to quit, have other players to quit the game first, and the host last.