216 days

Winda Benedetti

Campy 'Leisure Suit Larry' making a sexy HD comeback

Hide your kids! Hide your wife! The cheesy, naughty, cult-classic of a game "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards" is getting a remake ... and maybe even a brand new sequel.

That lovable, loungy loser Larry Laffer — who first appeared in all his pixilated and sexually frustrated glory in 1987 — is coming back for more adventures, thanks to Replay Games and Larry's creator, Al Lowe.

Replay chief executive Paul Trowe told VentureBeat that he will be working with Lowe to bring back all of the Leisure Suit Larry games redesigned with modern gaming in mind. And they'll be starting with "Land of the Lounge Lizards."

Originally published by Sierra Games, "Land of the Lounge Lizards" was an adventure game that put players into the shoes of Larry, a balding, lounge-suit-wearing cheese-ball on a desperate mission to get get some lady lovin' ... a mission he often failed.

The game was filled with double-entendres, sexual humor and silly escapades and, though it was all about the pursuit of pleasure, it was more titillating than truly raunchy (see the game's trailer below). "Lounge Lizards" was then followed by a series of increasingly less-beloved sequels the last few of which Lowe was not involved with.

Trowe says his company has secured rights to the entire franchise for all game platforms, and plans to start by launching the HD remake of "Land of the Lounge Lizards" in 2012. New games will follow if the remakes are a success, he said.

The question is, do today's gamers have any interest in revisiting the sexually frustrated 1980s? Well, the mere mention of Leisure Suit Larry certainly inspires a certain nostalgia in those of us who were in our hormone-fueled teens during that era. And us old-schoolers have been thrilled to see the good ol' "Monkey Island" adventure games get a new lease on life. (Though, personally, I'd take Guybrush Threepwood over Larry any day.)

The good news is, no matter what today's gamers expect out of a revamped "Leisure Suit Larry," Lowe says that he plans to keep the games' sense of humor intact in their new incarnation.

"We originally hooked players with the concept of a naughty game that was unusual and not found anywhere else," he said. "They stayed and liked the games because they were funny. My goal is to make it funny, and there is a sore lack of humor today in video games."

(Thanks to VentureBeat for the heads up.)

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Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things here on Twitter or join her in the stream here on Google+. And be sure to check out the In-Game Facebook page here.