"He's back! Look out, girls! Just when you thought it was safe to dive back into the gene pool, the original swinger is at it again!"
— The Narrator
Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals is a video game programmed by Al Lowe and published by Sierra in 1989. It's the third installment in the Leisure Suit Larry series.
Following the events of the last game where he (inadvertently) defeated the Mad Scientist Dr. Nonookee, Larry Laffer has since settled down on Nontoonyt Island with his new wife Kalalau. The natives have also turned the island into a giant tourist trap with various resorts and spas. One day, Larry returns home to discover that Kalalau has left him, for another woman. Since Larry's marriage to Kalalau is the only thing keeping him on good terms with her father, who is now the CEO of the island's tourism industry, he fires him. Realizing that he's now a single man on a tropical island full of women, Larry resumes his single life once more in search for love.
The game runs on the SCI 0 engine. The protagonists' movements are controlled with the arrow keys and commands must be typed into a text parser. Graphics are now more elaborate EGA sprites and the detailed pictures of women are back. Halfway into the game, control switches to Passionate Patti whose segments play more like a traditional adventure game. This game is the first with a rich soundtrack whereas the previous two games would just play sounds occasionally.
Video Examples for this article.
This game provides examples of:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: The feral pig wears a bow tie.
- Alliterative Name: Bonnie Barucki, Jungle Jo and Paul Paul.
- Alliterative Title: Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals. Which is also a Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle.
- Ambiguously Bi: The doorman at the exotic dancer club makes slobbering comments about the female headliner. When playing as Patti, he reappears at the male strip club and makes the exact same comments about the male headliner.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: This was one of the more openly touted features of this game. The player takes the role of Larry in the first part of the game, where he searched for new sexual conquests as usual, and then switches to Passionate Patti in the second part, where she tries to hunt down Larry and his buff, polyester-clad pecks.
- Black Comedy Rape: One of the game over scenes just might suggest that Patti is about to get violated by a boar. Of course, this is also a Double Entendre (see below). So maybe not.
- Boring, but Practical: Larry has to do exercises such as push-ups in order to buff him up. Problem is, he has to do it like a hundred times for each exercise and that means the player too has to command each move in real time. Maybe the developers wanted to convey the feeling of body exercises: it's boring, repetitive but it works out in the end? Even worse is the fact that the number of repeats you have to do in this section is determined by your CPU speed. Playing on anything faster than a 486? Have fun! Yes, originally it wasn't that bad. When the game first came out and you played it on the average machine from that era, you only had to do 25 of each exercise. This is however fixed if you use ScummVM to run the game.
- Brick Joke: After being dumped by Kalalau, Larry casually mentions that her new lover Bobbi's from a tribe of lesbian cannibal amazons. Near the end of the game, both he and Patti are taken prisoner by a tribe of lesbian cannibal amazons who still cling to their costumes.
- But Thou Must!: When Larry is returning home to Kalalau at the beginning, the game forces you to go the way that will get Larry there, otherwise he'll turn back and you'll once again get the pointer where to go.
- Cannibal Tribe: There's a village of amazonian lesbian cannibals living deep in the jungle of Nontoonyt island, and the last puzzle involves Patti and Larry finding a way to escape their captors before they're cooked for lunch.
- Captured by Cannibals: There's a part where Larry runs off into a jungle and the player assumes control of his girlfriend, at which point she has to find him, and help him escape from lesbian cannibals.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Once Larry woos Patti and finally has sex with her, she accidentally mumbles the name of her former lover while falling asleep (intending to break up with him for good afterwards), sending Larry into utter depression, and not for laughs. When you really think about it, EVERYONE on the island wants Larry to die, especially people he met from the first two games; all his potential lovers ditch him for some petty reason; and with him (mistakenly) believing that Patti would rather be with her other lover, Larry feels that this is the last straw and wanders off to the bamboo forest to die. This is when you control Patti and chase Larry down and prove to him that life really is worth living.
- Clothing Damage: Once Patti begins her search for Larry, by the time she finds him, her dress has been reduced to rags from all her adventuring. What's left of her dress is barely enough to cover up what's necessary, conveniently enough.
- Coitus Interruptus: Larry will have sex with several women, but something interrupts them. A crab attacks him while having sex with Tawni and he communicates this poorly, Cherri's next show starts and Larry accidentally puts her costume on and gets thrown on stage, Suzi keeps getting phone calls...
- Copy Protection:
- At one point, a Maitre 'd asks you about a pass. The pass is in the manual on a specified page. Failure to enter it correctly results in a game over.
- Later on, in the bamboo maze, the correct way to proceed is located in the manual with a song about Nontoonyt Nectarines. Every word in the song starts with a letter that's also the start of a direction, which is also the way you should go through. Not having the manual or realising that song's the key to victory only lets you proceed through by trial and error.
- Debug Room: Debug mode is still available which is accessed by typing in "ascot place" and then moving to another room. It can be used to teleport, change the way your character looks, get any item, or letting you type in commands during cutscene.
- Decoy Protagonist: You play as Larry for the first half. After that, Patti becomes the player character to the end, even going as far as to change the game's title bar to "Passionate Patti".
- Developer's Foresight: Get the lei very early in the game and give it to Patti. She'll refuse to take it because they're rotten.
- Developer's Room: The player can find developers Al Lowe and Ken Williams in several places: When first approaching the two at a club, the player can say a short phrase to the two, after which Al and Ken discuss the idea of putting themselves in the game and having Larry say something to them, only to conclude that it's way too implausible and teleport away.
- Disproportionate Retribution: If Larry knocks on the door near the stage at the Nontoonyt Hotel at the wrong time, the stage manager will burst out, yell at him for disturbing his show, and MURDER him by crushing his toes and punching him to death. Then hitting Larry so hard he sends him into orbit.
- Even the Rats Won't Touch It: One section of the manual/copy protection used this chart to rate restaurants:1 Star: My dog wouldn't eat here
2 Stars: My dog would eat here, but I wouldn't
3 Stars: My dog and I eat here regularly
4 Stars: This place is too classy to bring my dog
5 Stars: Top notch - Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The magic marker has magic properties.
- Formerly Fit: Larry put on quite a bit of weight since the previous game. He loses it after working out, though.
- Full-Boar Action: One of the obstacles Patti runs into while looking for Larry is a ferocious wild pig which she must dispose off by throwing it a coconut-filled bra.
- Gainax Ending: This game has Larry and Patti end up at Sierra in the real world (though it's portrayed more like a movie studio), complete with Roberta Williams directing Rosella in the infamous whale tongue scene from King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella.
- Game-Breaking Bug: This game is notorious for its speed bug. The faster the CPU cycle, the longer you have to endure some sequences.
- Exercising on the machines. Originally, you only need to do 20 of each. With the speed bug, you'll be doing this forever with no resolve.
- Waiting for the damn elevator to get to the penthouse. It will never come.
- Going Commando: In Patti's section, several puzzles require removing articles of clothing. Her panties are the first to go. During the ending, this reaches the point where you can surely see Patti's bare rear (with her crotch shadowed out) when she and Larry land on the ground face-first after the anti-gravity generator in the Space Quest section gets diabled.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: This game features a "Favorite Expletive" option which determines what kind of expletive the characters will say throughout the game. At lover filth levels, you're offered such swears as "Golly gee!" or "Gol dang it!" It's only starting from level 3 when you get normal vulgarisms like "Damn!" Of course, you can always change it to either avert this trope or play it straight.
- He's Back!: After being dumped by Kalalau, Larry does not know what to do. Give up on women forever, perhaps enter the ministry? No! Not Larry, Larry Laffer! So he summons a telephone booth, gets rid of the cool surfer look, and retrieves his classic polyester suit: the original swinger is at it again!
- Impact Silhouette:
- When Larry gets launched by the manager, he leaves a large hole shaped like him in the wall on the death screen.
- Parodied when Patti lands face-first into the ground after falling from a great height, she leaves two distinctive round holes in the ground. The second time that happens she worries that she may end up flat by the end of the game if that happen again.
- I Should Write a Book About This: In the end, Larry is employed by Sierra to design adventure games based on his own adventures. We last see Larry working on the first game, specifically what to call the bar he first enters at the beginning, with Patti suggesting Lefty's.
- The Law Firm of Pun, Pun, and Wordplay: The law firm "Dewey, Cheatem & Howe". He meets with Suzi Cheatem to file for divorce (and attempt to seduce her, adding another layer to the "cheat" pun).
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: One of the props seen at Sierra's studios is the titular Black Cauldron, although it isn't referred to by name, just "from another game Al Lowe worked on".
- LOL, 69: Suzi's spa keycard shows that her locker has the good ol' number 69.
- Pec Flex: Larry can do this after hitting the gym (a lot). Look at the subtitle, after all.
- Pinball Scoring: You can earn up to 4000 points, which is quite a lot for a Sierra adventure game, with early ones having up to 255 and later ones up to 1000. Though the demo version suggests it could have been the staggering 1,000,000.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- While having sex with Tawni, Larry gets attacked by crabs on the beach. Larry yells out that he has a case of crabs, killing the mood and causing Tawni to leave.
- Patti mumbles her on-and-off boyfriend's name, who she intends to break up with, while falling asleep with Larry. Larry mistakes this for her loving him and leaves.
- Produce Pelting: If Larry doesn't dance on stage, the crowd gets annoyed with him and starts chucking tomatoes as well as some green vegetables at him, which results in him dying of embarrassment.
- Railroading: Trying to do actions before certain flags are triggered (like getting granadilla wood before visiting Kalalau and your boss) stops the game from doing them, stating "Good idea. You might try that again later."
- Running Gag:
- A whole slew of double entendres followed up by 'a feeling not wholly unfamiliar to you!'.
- Also in this game, Larry trying to get laid with the women... only to be always interrupted by something. Until Patti, that's it.
- Shout-Out: When Larry ditches his surfer look and gets his old polyester suit back, he summons a phone booth in the middle of the jungle, to change clothes. Of course, that was the way Superman used to change from Clark Kent into Superman (back in those days when there were telephone booths).
- Sliding Scale of Linearity vs. Openness: A 2 on the scale. Not quite as linear as the predecessor and some light exploration can be done, backtracking is still possible as well, but other than that, tasks are again done one after another.
- Something Else Also Rises: When Bambi is doing sexual poses for her video, the microphone turns upward.
- Songs in the Key of Panic: The bamboo maze theme changes as you keep going and get thirstier. It starts calm and jungle-like, but quickly turns more ominous-sounding, eventually becoming menacing once time is almost up.
- Squirrels in My Pants: Larry has sex with a woman called Tawni on a beach, but after a moment, he stands up and shivers because he has some crabs that have climbed in his pants. Larry announces "I've got crabs!", and Tawni calls it quits.
- Tagline: "Are you a smooth, suave, single guy on the make, or maybe you fancy yourself the sleek, sexy femme fatale?"
- Theme Naming: All of the women have names ending in "i" (Tawni, Cherri, Suzi, Bambi, Patti, and even Bobbi, the woman Kalalau leaves Larry for at the beginning).
- Throw the Dog a Bone: In the first two games, all the women before the final girl will at best reject him in an extremely rude way, or lead him on and ditch him, or rob him, and a few in the second game are KGB agents trying to kill him, while the final girl will abandon him at the start of the next game. Here, every woman he meets immediately has sex with him (only to be interrupted by outside factors) and the final girl, Patti, settles down with him and they become Happily Married.
- Together in Death: At the end of the game, Larry and Patti get happily reunited, and if Patti can't do the final puzzle in time, she and Larry end up dying in a pot together.
- Trade Snark: The death message after the encounter with the feral pig reads "Are you sure Oscar Mayer™ started like this?"
- Training Montage: Larry attempts to get in shape on a series of exercise machines while a pastiche of "Gonna Fly Now" plays in the background.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: The bamboo forest. Similar to the desert in King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!, it's a large area to explore, in which Patti will die of dehydration after a fixed amount of screens. It's also a lengthy maze, so if you don't know the layout, be ready to redo this segment many, many times until you've mapped out the exact path you have to take. The "Nontoonyt Tonight" magazine/manual that comes with the game does give you directions through the maze, but it's done in a way that is very easy to overlook. One of the many things in the book is a jingle advertising Nontoonyt Nectarines. If one were to look at it closely, they might notice that every word in the song begins with either N, S, W or E. So it tells you whether to go north, east, south or west and in what order, but lots of players will just dismiss it as a mildly amusing song at first glance and then forget about it.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: There is a bit where you need to lift weights in order to buff up. Now, here is the thing: For unfathomable reasons, the amount of lifts are based on the processing power of your computer. In 1989, you needed to do a leisurely 25 push-ups. On a modern computer, without a mod, it can easily go into the thousands. "Use the cursor keys until you work up a sweat" indeed.
