Leisure Suit Larry III: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals! (Sierra On-Line) - 1989
This review is part of the “Let’s Adventure!” series. See all reviewed games sorted by rating here.
Leisure Suit Larry III: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals is a graphical adventure game designed by Al Lowe and published by Sierra On-Line for DOS, Atari ST and Amiga in 1989 as the third entry in their Leisure Suit Larry series.
Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals! is the third game in Al Lowe’s Leisure Suit Larry series. Larry Laffer has finally found the woman of his dreams, and can happily live with her together on the beautiful tropical island… until he gets thrown out of the house by his wife. His boss, who happens to be his (now ex-) father-in-law, fires him. Larry is all alone, without a woman, without a job, on an island that has long ceased to be a “tropical paradise” and is exploited by entertainers, lawyers, and alike. But never despair! Dressed in his irresistible leisure suit, Larry is about to conquer the world (or at least its female population) anew. Watch out, fairer sex, because Larry is back to his swinging self!
The game uses the same text-based interface and the same graphical engine as the previous entry in the series. The structure of the game, however, is more similar to that of the first installment: most of the time, the player is confined to one large area which can be freely explored. Unlike the two previous Larry games, the player does not just control Larry, but also - in the second half of the game - the enigmatic and beautiful pianist Patti, helping them to reach an ending that will finally bring happiness into Larry’s life.1
As with any title in the Leisure Suit Larry series, this game isn’t for kids. The subject matter is mature, the jokes are crude and the themes are sexually explicit. This doesn’t detract from the experience in any way though - this is probably what drew you to this game in the first place so you know what you’re in for.
If you start your game by poking around the menus, one of the first options you’ll find is the expletive configuration screen. Make this anything you want - Larry won’t censor you ;)
Once you’ve got your favourite expletive configured, you’ll start exploring the island. It made me chuckle every time this popped up in conversation, so I have to applaud the design decision they made with this mechanic.
Your objective isn’t really clear, so you start roaming around the small island to see what’s available. I’m not sure if it’s clever or not, but the game’s manual is sort of required reading to get you started, but the way it’s presented also isn’t very clear.
You’ll need to read through “Nontoonyt Tonite: Your Guide to the Island” (the game manual) as it sort of lays out your objectives, and acts as copy protection as well.
This game manual is the key to many of the game’s puzzles. Personally I think it’s relied upon too heavily, and some of the clues it contains are maybe too well hidden. For example, at one point you’ll need to make a grass skirt for a disguise, but in order to do this you need to:
- find the grass
- find a knife
- sharpen the knife
- cut the grass
WEAVE GRASS INTO SKIRT
You’re sort of lead towards that last step by the inclusion of “Native Grass Weaving Lessons” in the community calendar of the manual. Maybe that’s good puzzle design - maybe it’s too obscure - you decide.
As you progress you’ll meet various women that you can interact with. Each of them typically sets you up for some larger fetch quest, which on completion results in you getting to “interact” with them further (wink wink, nudge nudge).
Being a text parser driven game, Larry (and later Patti) interact with the game world based on what you type in. I’ve played a lot of Sierra adventure games, and though many games can be a bit rigid as to what they’re willing to accept, I really found progressing in this game to be frustrating.
Many interactions just aren’t obvious. This might just be a lack of patience on my part, but I relied pretty heavily on the walkthrough while playing through this game.
Most of the puzzles were obtuse, and more often than not the solutions were cryptically laid out in the game manual.
The goal of the game ends up being that Larry needs to find his way into the spa, figure out how to get into the locker and get himself pumped up.
This will enable him to hook up with the aerobics instructor, and then eventually meet up with Passionate Patti - the namesake of this game.
Patti and Larry will spend the night together, but Patti calls out the wrong name in her sleep. This upsets Larry, so he silently slips out of bed, gets dressed and leaves.
Apparently Patti is in love with Larry at this point and the mission for the rest of the game is to go find where he’s run off to.
The Patti portion of the game is fairly short, but immensely frustrating.
Once you take control of her and spot Larry (through the telescope on her balcony) heading to the far end of the island, your mission is to try and catch up to him.
Doing this involves navigating through a maze - which I continue to hate.
The solution to this maze is - you guessed it - hidden in the game manual. The lyrics to the song that is scattered throughout the manual has capitalized letters that refer to cardinal directions.
Stringing this together is the solution to the maze, but you can’t make it all the way through unless you remembered to pick up the bottle on wine in Patti’s room and fill it with water.
If you make it through the maze, you’ll need to figure out how to cross the chasm between two trees. Taking the hemp and weaving it into rope that you tie to a rock and throw over the chasm might make sense … but you’ll fall to your death every time you try to cross.
You’ll need to rip a chunk of your dress to build a harness that you then tie to the rope so you can cross. Who would think to do that? Maybe it was also hidden in the manual somewhere … but I reached for the walkthrough instead.
Once Patti makes it across the chasm and finds her way to the river, there’s a minigame you’ll be forced to play through.
You basically just have to veer left or right to avoid obstacles, but it takes a long time and isn’t really all that much fun.
I had to lower the game speed to make it through, and thankfully you can save and load your game on the river so you don’t lose too much progress every time you die … and you will die … often.
The endgame is fairly straightforward … assuming you remembered to pick up the magic marker on the island before you made your way to the maze.
Using the magic marker sort of “warps” you to the Sierra studios, where you walk through the sets of some other games.
This part is actually kind of cool, and the background music represents the games you’re walking through. The final set you visit is Space Quest, which you need to float over to a plug and unplug to finish the game.
After the final scene Larry and Patti meet Roberta Williams and she decides to have them write a game for her - so that’s where the story ends.
I personally like Al Lowe’s sense of humour, but I really didn’t enjoy this game. I appreciate that they tried to build a game around the manual that comes with the game, but it made for a very broken gaming experience.
You have to refer back to the manual way too often, and there are too many dead ends and dead man walking scenarios that require you to backtrack or restart.
Overall this entry in the series just wasn’t all that much fun. I am looking forward to the later entires (LSL6 and LSL7) in the series as I have much fonder memories of them.
Game Information
| Game | Leisure Suit Larry III: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals |
| Developer | Sierra On-Line |
| Publisher | Sierra On-Line |
| Release Date | 1994 |
| Systems | DOS, Amiga, Atari ST |
| Game Engine | SCI |
My Playthrough
| How Long To Beat? | 4 hours |
| Version Played | DOS via ScummVM |
| Notes | Walkthrough, Manual, Manual / Protection |
Score
See here for a refresher on how we’re scoring these games.
| Graphics (15) | 6 |
| Sound (10) | 5 |
| Plot / Progression (25) | 14 |
| Characters / Development (15) | 6 |
| Gameplay / Experience (15) | 6 |
| Replayability (5) | 1 |
| Impact / Impression (10) | 3 |
| Bonus / Surprise (5) | 1 |
| 42% |
Gallery
Footnotes
Description from Moby Games ↩︎