Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work (Sierra On-Line) - 1991

Series: Let's Adventure! A Journey into Adventure Games (1980-1999)

This review is part of the Let's Adventure! series. See all reviewed games sorted by rating here.

• ← Maniac Mansion (Lucasfilm Games) - 1987
• Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work (Sierra On-Line) - 1991

Article 101 of 101 in this series.

Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work is a graphical adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line for the Amiga, DOS and Macintosh computers in 1991. It is the fourth entry in their Leisure Suit Larry series and the first Larry title to have 256-color graphics and a fully icon-based interface. Being an (in)direct sequel to 1989’s Leisure Suit Larry 3, its title is misleading, as there is no Leisure Suit Larry 4.

Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work! is (despite the number) the fourth game in Al Lowe’s Leisure Suit Larry series. The middle-aged would-be-womanizer Larry Laffer fell off a boat during a cruise and sustained amnesia, forgetting how he and his sweetheart Patti got separated, how Larry got a job in LA, how Patti got a job with the FBI, and what happened in (the never released) Larry 4. Now Larry and Patti are working independently on two cases that are connected to each other, even though the heroes aren’t aware of that. Larry’s new bosses are involved in shady business, while Patti agrees to take a break from her career as a performing pianist and become an undercover agent. Will the two be together ever again?

Unlike the previous games with their text input, Larry 5 utilizes a graphical, icon-based interface. The player uses verb commands (LOOK, TALK, USE etc.) to interact with the environment. In a way not quite typical for Sierra’s adventure games, it is impossible to “die” in Larry 5, and the amount of “dead ends” (unwinnable situations) is greatly reduced. The game is also less puzzle-oriented, allowing the player to proceed even if he/she fails to solve the required puzzle in some cases. However, the player is awarded more points for finding the “right” solution. As in the third game, both Larry and Patti are available as playable characters during different chapters of the story.¹

If you’re asking yourself “why’s there no Leisure Suit Larry 4?”, you might as well start off at Al Lowe’s blog where he recounts some stories about his. He also follows this up with why he jumped right to Leisure Suit Larry 5, which can be summarized as:

[by skipping directly to LSL5] Suddenly I was completely freed from the restraints of the Larry 3 ending. I could have the new game begin anywhere. The idea was wacky, silly, dumb in a perfect “Larry-esque” way. And, it solved the “mind share” problem–how to grab people’s attention and make them think about the next Larry game and had they missed something?

If you’re wondering if you missed something … you haven’t. Leisure Suit Larry 5 is another adventure in a universe designed for 13 year old boys that exist at the intersection of dick and fart jokes. Al Lowe works the missing game into this game’s premise with Julius Biggs having stolen the “missing floppies” (of LSL4) and this somehow results in Larry coming down with amnesia. Larry is now working as a videotape technician at PornProdCorp, a sleazy entertainment company transitioning from adult films to mainstream television. His boss, Silas Scruemall has tasked him with traveling across America with a hidden camera to record three finalist women for their new TV show “America’s Sexiest Home Videos”.

The plot is pretty thin, but the graphics and sound are much improved over the previous game. As you’d expect from a Leisure Suit Larry game, your goal is either specifically or indirectly to get laid - which trying to track down the three finalists results in.

You’ll have to visit 3 different cities to locate the women, and this results in you visiting the same locations and set pieces over and over again. The limo interior is always the same, and the airport is always the same 4 screens and the same exterior shot.

The destination codes are copy protection

The game has copy protection in the form of the flight numbers. Based on the city and time of the flight you’ll need to look something up in the manual, but Al Lowe has helpfully put these all in one place for easy access. Given he’s the author of the game, it’s probably fine to share these, and the specific sheet you’d need to refer to can be found here.

Similar to Leisure Suit Larry 3, you’ll spend about half the game as Passionate Patti, who after getting cheated out of money she’s owed is recruited by the FBI to help uncover how organized crime has infiltrated the entertainment industry through subliminal messages embedded in rock music and rap recordings.

Like the Larry sequences, this involves traveling via limo to 3 locations where you click through a few screens and solve some basic item-based puzzles to gather evidence for the FBI.

Both Patti and Larry have dream sequences while they’re traveling that shows they’re thinking of the other. I don’t remember if this has something to do with them having amnesia or if it’s just sort of there to make their eventual reunion more impactful, but it doesn’t really add much to the story and come across as filler.

Even if they don’t add much to the story, these pseudo cut scenes showed off how much better the graphics are this time around. The music is also much improved and the soundtrack really helps set the tone for the scenes you’ll be exploring.

You’ll be collecting a lot of items throughout the game, but it tends to be a lot of similar items you’ll find in the same place. For example you get the camera, charger and 3 cassettes on the same screen, or the 3 dossiers and their contents on the same screen.

The gameplay is also fairly repetitive and you’ll go to the airport in each city, have to get a ticket to the next city, solve the copy protection, charge the camera, go to the waiting room and board the plane. When you land, you read all the ads to find the phone number(s) you’ll need, search the phones for one that works, find a quarter and call a limo to take you to the one location you can explore per city.

While exploring each location you’ll need to typically perform some inventory-based puzzle to progress, and the game makes it pretty obvious what the solution to each puzzle is. Where Leisure Suit Larry 3 might have had some extremely obtuse puzzles (like making the skirt), Leisure Suit Larry 5 swung the other way towards being a bit too easy.

You’re mostly on rails in this game, and unlike most Sierra titles, you can’t really get yourself into unwinnable situations or even die in weird and interesting ways.

The casino has a video poker machine you’ll need to play through to win enough money to enter into the mud wrestling ring later. Since you can save and restore at any point you can just place a max bet, save, play and restore if you don’t win.

I’ve noticed while playing through a number of Sierra games (ex: Codename: ICEMAN and Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel) that gating progress by forcing you to play and win some mini game is a bit of a trope. Thankfully it’s not in every game as it feels a bit arbitrary, but it’s fairly easy to get through so you can move on.

I KNOW you’re going to try and click the GET icon on that button 6 times to see what happens ….

You’re supposed to record your interactions with each woman, which means you have to make sure your camera is charged, your videos have been degaussed and inserted and the camera is on. If you don’t do this before your encounters, you won’t record the interaction which I believe only affects your score.

I only forgot to charge the camera once and I restored an earlier save to do it again “properly”, but since you can’t really get a game over in this game I guess it really didn’t matter.

Once you’ve encountered all the women and Patti has collected evidence against the 3 record labels, you find yourself on a crashing plane. You step up to try and save everyone … which you do by just clicking anywhere on the screen 4-5 times.

You land, go to the white house, are reunited with Patti, apprehend Biggs (who happens to be seated right next to you) and close the book on another entry in the Leisure Suit Larry series.

Although the graphics and sound were definitely much improved this time around, playing this game sort of felt like I was “going through the motions”. There wasn’t much challenge, the game world felt very small and there wasn’t much to explore.

I know it’s an Al Lowe game and what to expect, but the dick jokes and puns felt forced. There was definitely the makings of a decent story hidden in this game, but the execution was lacking. I did have some fun playing through this as there are a lot of pop culture references from the 60s through the 80s, but if you’re not in your 40s (or older) these may not resonate.

Game Information

Game	Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work
Developer	Sierra On-Line
Publisher	Sierra On-Line
Release Date	September 7, 1991
Systems	DOS, Amiga
Game Engine	SCI

My Playthrough

How Long To Beat?	4.5 hours
Version Played	DOS via ScummVM
Notes	Walkthrough, Manual

Score

See here for a refresher on how we’re scoring these games.

Graphics (15)	11
Sound (10)	6
Plot / Progression (25)	15
Characters / Development (15)	5
Gameplay / Experience (15)	11
Replayability (5)	2
Impact / Impression (10)	3
Bonus / Surprise (5)	2
	55%

Gallery

Footnotes

1. Description from Moby Games ↩︎