(re: Leisure Suit Larry cameos) I must say I also loved the in-game jokes. Really, they did work at the time, but I doubt such things would work today. This also says a lot about Sierra in those days. Thanks to The Sierra Newsletter/InterAction, TSN/INN, g-r-e-a-t technical support, a friendly attitude to fan letters and so on, there was a connection between the game developers and the people buying the games. Seriously, can you think of any other game company that alone has produced so many “developer superstars” as Sierra? It was funny and kind of cute to see a game crack jokes about the chairman of the company. And people knew who the chairman of the company was. Who knows the name of the chairman today? Is it still Mike Ryder? I don’t know… Anyway, if they put him in Half-Life 2, who would find it even remotely amusing, let alone recognize the guy?
There are many other things that may be said about the humor in the classic Sierra games. It is a reminder of old times. Young people today can’t relate to the shoddy 70’s athmosphere in LSL1 the way they could back then. And how about that joke in LSL2, where Larry has to prove his worth to Chief Keenewauwau (Ken Williams that is) and his tribe of island natives by writing some fancy Assembly language program? 😉 Back then, people used to have at least a hunch of what Assembly language programming was. How many ordinary computer users does today?
