Leisure Suit Larry III: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals is a video game with pictures created by Al Lowe and released by Sierra On-Line for DOS, Atari ST, and Amiga in 1989. It is the third game in the Leisure Suit Larry series. The story follows the main character, Larry Laffer, who is recently divorced and searches for love at a tropical resort. After meeting a woman named Passionate Patti and leaving her to go into the wilderness, the player controls Patti to look for him.

Gameplay

The game uses Sierra's Creative Interpreter (SCI0), which gives it a visual style similar to its earlier version, 1988's Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places). The game includes a mouse-controlled interface and a text-based system that lets players direct the actions of characters.

The story takes place on Nontoonyt Island, a tropical location from the previous game that has been changed into a resort. Like the city setting in Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, the island has many areas that players can explore freely from the beginning of the game.

Throughout the resort, players encounter several women who could be potential romantic interests for the game's main character, Larry Laffer. When players interact with these women, they are shown in close-up portraits, a feature also used in the first game of the series. The main goal of the game involves Larry giving gifts to these women, though none of the gifts require money, unlike in the original Leisure Suit Larry.

Leisure Suit Larry III introduces a second playable character, a woman named "Passionate Patti," for whom players briefly take control. Patti's part of the game follows a similar structure to Larry's, including scenes where characters face challenges and detailed portraits of their romantic interests, such as a male stripper. However, Patti's sections are more like traditional adventure games, requiring players to solve puzzles, navigate mazes, and collect items for later use.

As in Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, the game begins with a series of humorous questions that the developers believed only adults would know the answers to. Players can skip this process by pressing the keys Ctrl-Alt-X. The number of correct answers determines the game's "Filth Level," which ranges from 1 to 5. A low level (called "Mother Goose") prevents players from seeing any suggestive scenes, while a high level (called "Totally Raunchiest") allows all nudity to remain visible. The game includes some nudity but does not show Larry's romantic encounters in detail. The Filth Level also sets the default expletive used throughout the game, though players can change it to their preferred word.

Plot

The story begins five years after the events of Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places). After Larry defeats Dr. Nonookee, the tropical island of Nontoonyt becomes a resort that resembles Honolulu, Hawaii. Larry works at a well-paying job with a company called "Natives Inc." and lives in a luxurious house with his wife, Kalalau, who is the daughter of the tribal chief from the previous game. Larry's boss is Kalalau's father, who is now a wealthy businessman and has changed his name from "Chief Keneewauwau" to "Chairman Kenneth." After many years of a happy marriage, Kalalau ends their relationship and leaves Larry, who also loses his job. Feeling defeated, Larry retreats into a phone booth (a reference to Superman) and changes into his signature white suit, declaring his return to his previous lifestyle.

The female characters include Tawni, a topless sunbather who prefers shopping over dating Larry; Cherri Tart, a showgirl who works at a casino; Suzi, a lawyer from the law firm "Dewey, Cheatem & Howe" who helps with Larry's divorce; Bambi, an aerobics instructor; and Passionate Patti, a jazz pianist at the hotel (she previously appeared in the earlier game as "Polyester Patty"). Larry's attempts to impress these women all fail—until he meets Patti, who can be won over if Larry collects specific items and completes certain tasks based on his interactions with the others.

Larry and Patti spend the night together, but after they sleep, Larry hears Patti whisper the name of her former partner as she falls asleep. Heartbroken, Larry leaves Patti and becomes lost in the jungle near the resort. At this point, the game changes perspective, and the player controls Patti as she travels through the dangerous jungle, often removing clothing to survive, in an effort to find Larry and fix their misunderstanding.

In the final part of the game, Larry and Patti are captured by lesbian cannibals. In a humorous moment, they escape using a "magic marker" and end up at Sierra's real-life headquarters in Coarsegold, California, which is shown in the game as a movie studio. They must navigate through scenes from other Sierra games, such as Police Quest and Space Quest II. This sequence includes jokes that reference the games themselves. At the end, Larry interrupts Sierra programmer Roberta Williams as she directs a scene from King's Quest IV.

The game concludes with Larry receiving a job offer from Sierra, and the couple is shown living in a log cabin in California. Larry is working on a new series of computer games based on his adventures.

Development

With Leisure Suit Larry III, Sierra chose to return to themes for older audiences, which had been mostly missing from Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (In Several Wrong Places). The characters in the game, especially Larry, are drawn in a more cartoon-like and exaggerated style compared to the previous game, which used a realistic approach. The instruction manual included with the game looks like a tourist guide, featuring several "advertisements" that serve as codes to help players pass Sierra's copy protection system. The game includes a wider variety of MIDI music tracks than the earlier version.

Reception

Al Lowe stated that each game in the Leisure Suit Larry series, including Leisure Suit Larry III, sold more than 250,000 copies. According to Sierra On-Line, total sales of the Larry series reached over 1.4 million units by March 1996, before the release of Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail! By the time Love for Sail was launched, sales of the first five Leisure Suit Larry games had passed 2 million copies.

In the May 1990 issue of Games International, Theo Clarke wrote that placing the game’s credits at the beginning in a part players cannot skip made Leisure Suit Larry III feel slow at first. However, he noted that after the opening, the game moved quickly and had unique style. Clarke said this game had more problems than earlier titles. He criticized the soundtrack as annoying and believed the total score of 4000 was too high, which made achieving points for small tasks feel less rewarding. He also said the game’s added complexity made responses less accurate than in previous games. Clarke gave the game a score of 8 out of 10 for both gameplay and graphics, stating that Sierra’s high standards for quality were hard for other companies to match.

Leisure Suit Larry III received an "Excellence Award" from the editors of Game Player’s PC Strategy Guide. In 1991, PC Format listed the first three Leisure Suit Larry games among the 50 best computer games of all time. The editors wrote that the three games explored new levels of computer entertainment—they were humorous, suggestive, and filled with wordplay and double meanings, designed to appeal to human nature’s more playful side.

In 1994, PC Gamer US ranked Leisure Suit Larry III as the 37th best computer game ever. The editors wrote that the game was very funny, offered many gameplay options, and even allowed players to experiment with switching character genders. They asked, "How can you beat that?"