40 replies to this topic

[MusicallyInspired]

What worries me about what Replay Games wants to do is that the games look very cheap, way too cartoony, and intended for handheld devices only.

[e1ven]

I have my reservations, but they're fighting the good fight.
They were able to get the licenses, and they're trying.

I'm for giving them the benefit of the doubt.

[Collector]

I don't expect much from Replay. I, too am turned off by the cartoony graphics. I am fed up with all of the games that fall back on such graphics. It seems that all we can expect is either action games or cartoons.

[MusicallyInspired]

They've only got one license for sure. And that's from Codemasters not ActiVision. They're still "in talks" for the other licenses.

[Cosmic Castaway]

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It seems that all we can expect is either action games or cartoons.

Yes, because Sierra never did anything with their games that could be considered cartoony. Frankly, I care less about the graphics and more with what they're actually going to be doing with the IPs as far as actual playable titles is concerned. Are they just intent on doing remakes or are we going to see some actual new games come out of this? Mixed feelings on both.

[Collector]

Of course Sierra did games with cartoony graphics. I never claimed otherwise. I was speaking of current games. Too many modern games fit one of these two categories for my tastes. The sample of the LSL1 remake has Larry looking fairly like what  he used to, But those buildings? Perhaps a cartoony style fits Larry more, but too many newer games that are supposedly of a more serious bent are going down this route.

[pcj]

Of interest: http://www.rockpaper... ... ssic-game/

[Dat Engineer]

Collector said:

Of course Sierra did games with cartoony graphics. I never claimed otherwise. I was speaking of current games. Too many modern games fit one of these two categories for my tastes. The sample of the LSL1 remake has Larry looking fairly like what  he used to, But those buildings? Perhaps a cartoony style fits Larry more, but too many newer games that are supposedly of a more serious bent are going down this route.

I love the graphics style of the classic Sierra games too, but it's undeniably aged, and while fangames like KQ2VGA feel free to dabble in it, no professional company - not even Telltale - would dare do this. I don't understand why, but people seem to have an aversion to it.

[Datadog]

So far, I think the Al Lowe games (Leisure Suit Larry 7 and Torin's Passage) made the best use of high-res cartoony graphics. Cartoony graphics just suit Al's games much better and I'm glad they're going in this direction for it in the remake.

Although (and this has been nagging at me for some time) I'd really like to know where all the babes are in these promos. Larry's all about the ladies and yet all we've seen is the same overly-gory death of him getting splattered by a taxi. If I were Al, I'd grab a pen and paper, scribble up a stick figure with boobs, sign it, and then add it as a prize on Kickstarter.

[MusicallyInspired]

Mad_C33 said:

I love the graphics style of the classic Sierra games too, but it's undeniably aged, and while fangames like KQ2VGA feel free to dabble in it, no professional company - not even Telltale - would dare do this. I don't understand why, but people seem to have an aversion to it.

Yes, of course it's aged. But there are other alternatives to ultra-cartoony.

[Collector]

MusicallyInspired said:

Yes, of course it's aged. But there are other alternatives to ultra-cartoony.

Exactly. And ultra-cartoony describes what bugs me. The buildings look like distorted soap bubbles.

[MusicallyInspired]

Hmmm, just noticed in the Kickstarted that they mentioned that a redesign of Larry would be looked at if this/these remakes are a success. It was also mentioned that the screenshots they've been posting for the past few months of the same area were a proof-of-concept creation to pitch the idea to Codemasters.

[e1ven]

This video explains a bit more of where they're coming from.

It's Dry.. Seriously, like a [INSERT SEX JOKE HERE]

But if you want the wonky information on what Replay is about, check it out.

http://www.youtube.c... ... ure=colike

[pcj]

They made their Kickstarter goal today. (Y)

[Troels Pleimert]

For completeness sake: Larry made it.

[Spikey]

With my $100 pledge

Just on the art.. one thing I'm VERY curious about is whether LSL1VGA+ is going to keep the art deco style of the original remake. One very nostalgic memory of LSL1VGA is that it had such a great look to it, different to say LSL5 which tried much harder to look like modern America, and succeeded too, but Larry 1 has an almost iconic retro look to it that I wonder if they LSL7-ify it, if it will still succed or whether it'll either be too classy or too cheesy.

Yow, that was a mouthful. But let's see. I guess the fact that a live orchestra is either redoing the old music or doing totally new music (hopefully not the latter) is in the same boat, it'll either be awesome or be too awesome (is that even a thing?).

OK, obviously I'm torn. Someone wanna help me out..

[pcj]

Final amount is well over $650k so looks like there's going to be new content in there.

http://www.kickstart...again?ref=email

[Capn_Ascii]

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Not to mention that the manual was one of the best parts of Freddy! The sheer number of jokes in it made for great reading material, and half the time I went searching for the solutions, I wound up getting distracted by the three or four other humorous medications on the page!

I miss feelies.

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...ultra-cartoony describes what bugs me. The buildings look like distorted soap bubbles.

Have you ever actually *played* the LSL games? They're *supposed* to look like that. Sometime after LSL3, during the Sierra-wide transition to 256-color graphics, Al and his Larry team realized that, while the other game series were heading towards more realistic-looking graphics, LSL could benefit from going in the opposite direction. Thus, the Larry games achieved an exaggerated, 'modern art' spin - specifically designed to make the games fun and entertaining to watch even when nothing explicitly funny was happening on-screen. It worked like a charm, and I wouldn't have LSL any other way.

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One very nostalgic memory of LSL1VGA is that it had such a great look to it, different to say LSL5 which tried much harder to look like modern America, and succeeded too, but Larry 1 has an almost iconic retro look to it that I wonder if they LSL7-ify it.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Part of the reason I love the LSL games is because they weren't afraid to emphasize the "art over realism" school of thought as opposed to other games of the time. The so-called "whacked out" (snicker) art style stayed mostly consistent between LSL games, albeit with slight tweaks:

--LSL5, as Spikey said, applied the art deco look to the then-modern-day world, with exaggerated architechture and characters.
--LSL1VGA did the same thing, except with a heavy retro feel meant to evoke the earlier 80s setting and the 70s mindset that Larry was mentally stuck in at the time.
--LSL6 kept the art style of LSL5 with regards to buildings and environments, but the characters (except for Larry himself) were made realistic again.
--LSL7 again kept the same environment design, but applied a layer of cel-shaded cartooniness to everything - lightly on the backdrops, more heavily on the characters. The remake seems to be emulating this style, which makes sense, as it was the style of the last classic LSL series game to be released.
--Magna Cum Laude, though not strictly a part of the original series of games, nonetheless sucessfully transitioned the exaggerated art style into 3D. Like LSL6, the characters are realistically proportioned, but there's a slight degree of LSL7-esque cartoonishness to the designs that keeps them from looking too photorealistic.

It should be noted that in *all* cases, a universal exception to the "art deco" design of the later games was the girls - all of the Larry babes in each game stayed as realistic-looking as possible, mostly because it's hard to find a Picasso-style cubist chick sexy. Unless you're into that sort of thing. Speaking of which...

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Although (and this has been nagging at me for some time) I'd really like to know where all the babes are in these promos.

Saving the best for last, dude. LSL is all about girls, girls, girls - if we see all the hotties up front, what will we have to look forward to in the actual game?

(Although they're going to have their work cut out for them to out-sexy some of the classic LSL girls. Eve VGA? Good *god*. )

[Spikey]

You like *Eve*, Cap'n?  Give me Passionate Patti in 16 glorious colors, any day.

[Capn_Ascii]

What can I say? There's something about a gorgeous dark-skinned girl with a retro chic sense of style sitting naked in a hot tub that strikes my fancy.

Although I admit, Patti wins the "most desirable" award by sheer virtue of personality. She's beautiful, but unlike many of the other girls Larry meets, she's also genuinely affectionate - as opposed to uninterested, manipulative, or outright evil. Or Shablee.

I think my favorite bit of Patti characterization ever is when Larry tries to pick her up in LSL3 before he's gotten a proper divorce. She politely declines to talk to him - she refuses to have anything to do with married men. Her reasoning: It's not fair for married guys to get more than one girl when there are so many *single* men out there who need her company more.

And of course, there's something to be said for a woman who braves dehydration, perilous pitfalls, feral jungle pigs, and arcade sequences to save the man she loves. Not bad for a lounge pianist armed only with a cocktail dress and various assorted undergarments.