Box Office Bust is a poorly designed, crass, immature disaster that is acutally a step back for gaming.
Presentation: 1
Leisure Suit Larry: BOB places you in the shoes of Larry Lovage, who few (and I mean few) will remember from Magna Cum Laude. Larry receives a call from his uncle Larry Laffer, and quickly hops a plane to Hollywood. Once there, big Larry tasks little Larry to find a "mole" intended on taking down the famed Laffer studios. From there, little Larry Lovage begins his quest of mundane quests, shouting expletives and making dirty jokes the whole way.
The game contains 45 missions, which is far too many considering they all have the same "drive from point A to point B and fight/climb up to/pull lever" format. There's also a director's mini game, in which you direct a scene by choosing the best of three possible camera shots, and a dating mini game, which you choose the correct dirty pick-up line to entice a woman into your trailer; unfortunately, these games are WAY to easy, and don't offer much variety to an already dull game. In addition there are races (yeah, races!) randomly thrown in as well as Larry Awards, which are similar to the secret packages in Grand Theft Auto. Larry Awards lack any cleverness or discretion in their placement, so you'll collect them all easily in one playthrough, although you might not want to bother playing the game for that long.
Graphics: 1
This is one of the ugliest games I've ever seen, dating back to Superman on the N64. The character models are grotesquely designed, blocky, smudgy messes, and every other building looks the same. And maybe – MAYBE – I'd be willing to overlook this, if the camera wasn't so terrible. Your greatest foe, the camera is the most demonic thing I've ever encountered in a video game. The camera allows you rotate 360 degrees and zoom into a first person perspective, but only when it wants you to. Sometimes you can try to change the camera angle, and it just won't let you. In addition, the prefixed angles the camera is set at are entirely off point, and make platforming (one of this games major focuses) a pain in the @$$.
Sound: 2
Ok, the good first. This game surprisingly has a decent amount of star power (though we can safely say that all parties will deny taking part in this). Josh Keaton, Jay Mohr, Patrick Warburton, Jeffrey Tambor, Shannon Elizabeth, Carmen Electra, Artie Lange, and Dave Atell all lend their talents to a script that unfortunately squanders it all on fart jokes. Don't get me wrong, some of the tongue-in-cheek dialogue is very witty, with one of my personal favorites being a character mentioned in the director mini game by the name of Barry "Boo" Khakis (yeah…think about that for a minute). Unfortunately this game tries to hit the cheap laugh too often, and it comes up feeling campy and just not funny.
Gameplay: 1
Where to begin? Well let's begin with Larry himself, who handles worse than the cars in Godfather 2. And don't even bother pressing the sprint button, because Larry apparently has the stamina of the Nutty Professor. But hey, that's why there are cars to "hijack." Oh wait, don't get within a foot of the car, or it will magically run you over, a slow-mo fall to the ground that eats your soul every time it happens. The cars, little go-karts that you commonly see around movie sets, handle like mac trucks, and you would often do better to walk then try to navigate one of those cumbersome vehicles. Also, should you "hijack" a car, the person driving never gets out of the car, so when you exit the car, they drive off, leaving you stranded should you have to get somewhere else. As I'm sure you've notice I put "hijack" in parenthesis, because it's more like catching a ride that "hijacking." Sometimes Larry just hops in the passenger seat and lets the other guy drive (while you strangely still gain control of the vehicle).
Unfortunately for fighting fans, the combat system doesn't get much better. Larry has a two button fighting vocabulary, allowing you to block, punch, and perform a special spin move by pressing both buttons. This doesn't sound so bad, but when facing 3 or more baddies, this becomes a real pain in the neck. You'll often find yourself taking a quick shot, then running away to let your health regenerate (which regenerates at the speed of a snail!) since enemies attacks will take a significant portion of your life away, while your strikes barely deplete their health.
But hey! Larry's not a fighter! He's a PLATFORMER! Well let me introduce you to the most frustrating, cheapest platformer I have ever seen. Larry is able to jump, double jump, wall jump, and cling to edges. The problem is that no have real control over which one he's going to do, you just have to press the button, and pray to God. Larry often gets stuck on the scenery, so you may be jumping from one ledge to another, but instead see Larry stick to the ledge and then fall to his death, muttering one of his "witty retorts" in the process. Additionally, can anyone explain to me why Larry has the Spiderman ability of sticking to walls?
Reviewers Tilt: Rubber Chicken
I don't feel compelled to give Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust a true score, because it didn't give me a true game. This game is like the setup for a joke that never comes. This poorly designed, immature, crass, piece of trash is an actual step back for video games.