Perhaps it's just a testament to how fast technology was progressing in the early 1990s, but the somewhat unneeded sequel to a clunker of a game that was Les Manley: In the Search of the King is very, very different from its poorly designed, parser-driven predecessor. Not that this sequel is a great game either, but it is more playable thanks to the mouse-driven UI. What a difference a year makes, eh?
The first Les Manley game was something of a forgettable and badly designed game, with a loose plot of trying to find the next Elvis. In the sequel, Les is invited to Los Angeles by his friend from the first game, Helmut Bean, the smallest man in the world, who is now a Hollywood superstar. He has arranged for Les to visit LA, and he takes up the offer.
As it happens, there have been a string of kidnappings of celebrities, and Helmut is the next victim. When Les arrives, Helmut has been taken, so it's now up to Les to find him. This adventure takes him through the land of dreams to a closed-down wax cabinet, where the madman is turning celebrities into wax dolls. A short fight later, Helmut and Les rise victorious.
Search for the King had a very little story; Lost in LA has more, but it's not by any means a stuffed game in those terms. It's again a comedy—not a very good one, though. There's a bit more titillation involved this time around in the form of more scantly clad ladies than in the first game, mostly thanks to the game using still photos in its cutscenes. Not quite early Tex Murphy-level stuff, but still.
The game design is greatly improved from the first game, and many of the puzzles telegraph themselves to the player better. This makes the game easier to approach, but there aren't any genuine stunners in the puzzles. A couple of them do require trial and error, and it's possible to lock yourself in a walking-death situation in a couple of places if you do something you shouldn't. But other than that, there are worse examples of bad adventure game design out there; this is mostly just middle-of-the-road stuff.
There are more grounds to compare Lost in LA to Larry games this time around, but again, Les isn't out to desperately hunt sex this time either. While he does end up taking a deep dive into talking tech with some sexy mudwrestlers, he is just a guy trying to find his friend. There are more sex jokes as well, but nothing terribly raunchy.
Graphically, the game looks different as well, thanks to VGA graphics and scanned, hand-drawn backgrounds. This, combined with the use of photos in cutscenes, does sometimes make the game look a bit of a mixed bag, but this has been done much worse as well.
What I really am saying is that the game is, at least, technically competently made, despite the fact that the fact that I don't find it at all funny.
And for the finale, there's the music. I ended up turning it off relatively quickly. The music is credited to Ken Allen, who has done much better in various Sierra games, such as Space Quest and King's Quest, so this isn't his finest work.
So, to iterate, the first Les Manley game was pretty bad; the second one is merely uninspired. I can't really recommend it either, but if you really want it, both of the games are sold on GOG and Steam, in bundles and separately.
Comments
Post a Comment