Classic playthrough: "Les Manley in: Lost in L.A."

"New" game!

After the disaster that was Les Manley in: Search for the King, my sadomasochistic side played up again and enticed me to boot up its sequel, Les Manley in: Lost in L.A. Now, considering the current climes, the only way you could find me lost in L.A. is indeed in computer game form. But the change from a text parser to a true point 'n click interface did fill me with a little bit of hope; though I also heard mention that this sequel makes the first game appear like LeChuck's Revenge...

Ooh, inventory...

The story so far: Helmut Bean, tiniest man in the world who helped me retrieve something from a pool drain in the first game, is now living the L.A. dream with actress LaFonda Turner, only to find himself kidnapped like so many other celebrities seem to be these days. After he called me, Les Manley, to come and visit him, he's nowhere to be found. The quest to find him naturally falls to me, then.

No way to get lost with such a detailed map...

So for about an hour I've been traipsing all over L.A., talking to some people, acquiring a handful of inventory items, like a fake celebrity selfie, a spare travel map for some reason, an elastic piece of pigeon poo (!) and a free pass for a mud wrestling club. The logical places to visit won't let me in yet. So these obstacles still need to be vanquished, though I have no idea what exactly that will lead to. But some items come without a clear goal of where to go and what to do with them exactly. Which is classic adventure game fare, of course...  

Yes, be your own game and stop referencing the clichés...

I guess there's nothing else to do for now than revisit all locations and see if there's something else I can do there. So far I'm quite appreciative of the smart-cursor interface, the graphics style and, well, the typical 90s style adventure game music. I have a feeling this game is also more forgiving than its predecessor, though it's still early days and I might regret having said that that in my next blog post...

You can find Les Manley in: Lost in L.A. on Steam and on GOG!