<!--
	Title: Son of "Flesh Gordon?"
	Subtitle: Infocom's Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2
	Author: Chris Lombardi
	Source: Computer Gaming World, v12(7)
	Date: July 1992
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

<table class="article-sidebar-dark float-right-half" style="border: 3px solid;"><tbody>
<tr><td>TITLE:</td><td>Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2:
	Gas Pump Girls Meet The Pulsating Inconvenience From Planet X</td></tr>
<tr><td>SYSTEM:</td><td>IBM</td></tr>
<tr><td>PRICE:</td><td>$69.95</td></tr>
<tr><td>PROTECTION:</td><td>Document Look-Up</td></tr>
<tr><td>DESIGNER:</td><td>Steve Meretzky</td></tr>
<tr><td>PUBLISHER:</td><td>Infocom<br>(label of Activision)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>

1930\. Upper Sandusky, Ohio. A lone, despondent soul sits slouched upon
a bar stool, sipping away the worries of a world sunk deep in economic depression
and tense with precarious political balances. Stepping into the bathroom to
answer a call from the body's nether-regions, this lone soul assumes a gender
and is whisked into a racy lampoon of the Flash Gordon era sci-fi.

1950\. Atom City, Nevada. Twenty years, a world war and the nefarious acquisition and
dismantling of a Massachusetts based computer game company have passed since the
evil plans for world domination by the *Leather Goddesses of Phobos* were thwarted
through the invisible efforts of a now dead Ohian. Now, in a bizarre twist of fate that
could only be the set up to a sequel, the son of that unsung Earthling must now finish the
job that his parent somehow left unfinished. Yes. Miraculously resurrected from their Ultimate
Defeat, those leather girded dominatrixes are once again out to capture the hard
disk space of adventure gamers in, *Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2*.

<img class="float-left" src="/public/img/articles/cgw-lgop2-review/lgop2-cover.jpg" alt="Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 cover">

Steve Meretzky's *Leather Goddesses of Phobos* (*LGOP*) was a classic among the many text-adventure
titles produced by Infocom during its glory days in the mid 1980's. *LGOP* was
unique in that it was one of the first 'adult' computer games widely distributed and was
the first to give the option of choosing between a male and a female protagonist in a
genre that had, until then, completely ignored the female gamer. In addition, *LGOP* was
composed of some of Meretzky's best humor, a challenging set of puzzles, and a funny,
bawdy, though "mature" treatment of sex.

Since then, the original owners and designers of Infocom, as well as the days of text adventures,
have been cast to winds. Meanwhile, Steve Meretzky has been keeping himself busy
authoring Legend Entertainment's{*Spellcasting 101 & 201*} series of graphic adventures.
*LGOP2* finds Meretzky rejoining the Infocom label to revive his old title with a new era to
parody and a new era of adventure game technology to exploit. Unfortunately, to the disappointment
of this Infocom and Meretzky fan, the combination of author, production group,
and new technology seems to lose the entire spirit of the original text game in the 'translation'
to graphic adventure.

Similar to the original *LGOP*, *LGOP2* can be played from different character perspectives.
In *LGOP2* these include: Brad, the son of the hero of the original game, Lydia, the
daughter of the town astronomer, or Barthgub, a pulsating inconvenience from Planet X.
With each character under their command, players see a somewhat different side of the
story in pursuing different tasks and overcoming different obstacles. All are out to stop the
evil devices of the Leather Goddesses, and all must romp through a rather good parody of
50's era sci-fi, which takes its shots at *The Blob* and *War of the Worlds*, among other
xenophobic creations born on the eve of the "Space Age".

After the title, the author and the plot, all parallels between *LGOP2* and its predecessor
come to an abrupt halt. Any resemblance between the game interface for this game and
the interface of the original, living or dead (and which can be succinctly described in one
character, ""), is purely coincidental. Instead, the interface has been replaced by that of a
typical graphic adventure. In the original, all the aural stimulation one could expect was
the rapping of keys set to the beat of a computer fan, whereas *LGOP2* boasts a complete
soundtrack and digitized speech — lots of digitized speech. In fact, of the ten 5.25 inch
disks the game came on, I would venture at least three-quarters are filled with speech. All
of this is not necessarily an improvement.

The *LGOP2* game environment is, like all graphic adventures, divided into discreet locations
given full graphic descriptions. The graphics themselves are spotty -- with the occasional
well done piece (some very nice stuff in the introduction), but for the most part quite
mediocre. They generally lack cohesiveness -- a quality indicative of a group effort without an
overall artistic vision. Still, as the original *LGOP* proved, a game is not necessarily a
beauty contest and, even if it were, there is always the talent show. We move to the interface...

Following the trend in the genre, *LGOP2* has honed down its interface to the bare essentials.
All possible interactions with the game are mediated by a happy little cursor that provides
players with all the information they need. As the player moves the cursor about
the screen, the cursor icon changes to reflect the 'interactive potential' of that object. If the
icon is a hand or tentacle, depending on the character one is currently playing, then that
item can be looked at or taken. If an arrow, one can go "thataway." If a mouth, dialogue
is possible. Simply put, we have 'go', 'take', 'look', 'talk' and a combination of clicks that
amount to 'use.' An interface can't get much tighter than that.

<img class="float-right" src="/public/img/articles/cgw-lgop2-review/lgop2-art.jpg" alt="The Leather Goddesses">

Now, many people like the direction adventure game interfaces are taking. The simpler
they are, the more friendly and accessible the game becomes and the easier the game is to
design and program. While an interface like *LGOP2*'s is intuitive and unambiguous, it can
often seem to err a bit on the side of simplicity. With the decrease in the range of player
interactions (reduced, basically, to 'take' and 'use' in this case), it seems the range of possibilities
for interesting puzzles decreases as well. More and more, graphic adventures are
becoming Easter egg hunts where the player's job is to run around gathering goodies and
putting them in their proper baskets. Admittedly, the balance between clarity and the expressiveness
of player interaction has always been a difficult design decision, but it seems
we may be taking the simplicity thing a bit to far. Then again, this is the opinion of an
atavist who still thinks text parsers are a good idea.

If the heart of an adventure game is its story and puzzles then, frankly, *LGOP2* could use a
defibrilator -- stat. The storyline is rather cliche, though I suppose it would have to be as
a spoof of the 50's era 'B' sci-fi movies. Certainly, the plot elements and the characterizations
are all drawn from those 'classic' films. It certainly does a better job with the
spoof than Cinemaware did with *It Came From The Desert*, though it seems to run dry
in spots and it certainly runs short. The Leather Goddesses, for whom the game is
named, have an all-too-brief role in the game, and the Gas Pump Girls, who were given second
billing, have little to do with the plot. I was hoping they might have been possessed
pawns of an alien mind or secret conspirators with the CIA or, at least, the Leather Goddesses
incognito, but alas, all they turn out to be is an excuse for more bit-mapped bimbos
and a catchy subtitle.

As for puzzles, they are pretty rare creatures in *LGOP2*. Playing the game as one of the humans
involves a small handful of them, most of them of the "use-the-right-thing-on-the-right-thing
variety," while the number of puzzles in the Barthgub (the alien) game can be
counted on one tentacle. Playing as Lydia the first time through, with the digitized speech
turned on and playing at a leisurely pace, I finished that game in about 6-7 hours and
thereby, challenged the records established by *Loom* and *Space Quest IV*. As the alien, it was
more like one hour. A member of the *LGOP2* design team addressed this issue by stating
that the game was targeted toward a beginner level gamer. I thought this odd considering
that, one, this is a Meretzky game (who is described in the documentation, in reference to
the puzzles, as having a "truly devious mind"); two, is a sequel to a game with interesting
and challenging puzzles; and three, that nowhere on the game packaging is this fact
pointed out.

## Sp..p..peach Immmmm...pediments

As mentioned earlier, *LGOP2* supports a huge amount of digitized speech in its character
interactions. In fact, I would say that *LGOP2* includes the most ambitious speech
support effort ever packed into an entertainment product. The pleasantly surprising part
of it is that one need not even own a sound board to hear this dialogue, for the game package
includes an adapter, called the *LifeSize Sound Enhancer*, that will pipe quality speech
through a printer port and out to amplified speakers. The sound quality from this adapter
is very nice; it's loud and clear. Unfortunately, the actual readings of the dialogue
shoot well below par.

One would think that if a design group were going to invest so much time and disk
space (both = money) to speech, they would invest a little more to get decent speech talent
to do the readings. In a penny-wise pound-foolish production decision, it appears as if
the 'front-office' people at Activision were rounded up and given a shot at their 15-minutes
of stardom. Unnatural pacing, wooden emotion and unconvincing caricature take
part in a production strongly suggestive of mediocre amateur theatre. At its best, the speech
does not add a thing and, if I hadn't been playing for the purpose of a review, I would
have opted to play without it after the first few wincing minutes. I sure wish they would
have traded a couple megabytes of this stuff for a few more hours of game play.

<img class="float-right" src="/public/img/articles/cgw-lgop2-review/lgop2-screen-shot.jpg" alt="LGOP2 screen shot">

## Es Ee Eks

I approach the issue of sex with fear and trepidation. It's a can of worms, and no matter
how I handle it, there will, without fail, be ordnance heading my way from all camps.
Nonetheless, I think a few words here are appropriate, so I'll hunker down in my bunker
and listen for incoming.

First off, anyone who could get much titillation from a cartoonish computer game like
LGOP2 is pretty hard pressed or a very frustrated young teen (usually it's both). If one
were seeking pornography one would be well advised to seek out another medium. Sex (as
well as vulgar language and 'adult themes') in computer games, then, should be used to
achieve other aims. For example, one might use these "tools" to add *realism* to a dramatic
storyline or as a comedic tool in a humorous game like *LGOP* or Sierra's *Leisure Suit Larry*.
Indeed, it seems the cartoonishness of the graphics and the silliness of character caricatures
in games like these create a fertile playground upon which to dance upon taboos
and lampoon the sillier aspects of human behavior. As Steve Meretzky says in his disclaimers
on his adult games, "Sex is fun" and, I might add, is funny as well, in appropriate
contexts. I believe it was precisely this adult, 'sex is fun' treatment of the 'nasty' content in
Meretzky's earlier racy works (and in Sierra's Larry series) that protects these game's from
most accusations of being pornographic.

The approach to sex in the original *LGOP* was silly and irreverent, and yet at the same
time, through Meretzky's particular humorous slant, lent a 'mature attitude' to the treatment.
However, the sex in *LGOP2* seems to take on a much different color. One probable
cause is the fact that Meretzky's humor does not shine as brightly as in his others games.
In previous games, his humor is at its best in descriptions and in witty come-backs to
player actions, whereas in *LGOP2*, the game's structure eliminates much of the need for description
and, for obvious reasons, places emphasis on character dialogue. Whether for lack
of inspiration or lack of opportunity, good chuckles are sparse in *LGOP2*.

Perhaps this is one reason why the treatment of sex in LGOP2 seems so gratuitous,
and adolescent, and (to use a friend's favorite adjective for pop music) insipid. The game's
'explicit' visual content is all very tame (no more explicit than a beer commercial, really)
and, for the most part, involves rather mediocre images of women in tight shirts, garters,
or leather, most with impossibly protruding nipples. It's the stuff of a Wally Cleaver daydream,
which is appropriate to the game context, I suppose. It appears quite innocuous at
first, yet as I played along I began to sense an underlying attitude running though it all that
can best be seen in the use of a whorehouse in the game. When one approaches this whorehouse,
one is served a menu of a dozen or so names to choose from. Choosing a name
takes players to a harlot's room and affords them a "look at the goods". Though loosely
integrated into the storyline, it is all too apparent that it is merely an excuse for a slide show
of more rather average drawings of women. You have to wonder what Activision was
thinking. Do they imagine adults are turned on or, at minimum, entertained by this stuff?
If they do, then I think they've misunderstood their market. And that must be the
case, for the only other possibility is to suggest that their real target market is actually,
and more insidiously, a younger, larger slice of the computer game demographics pie.

If there is anything that can save *LGOP2* it's Meretzky's occasional gem of a barb or wise
crack, and his goofy spoof of old sci-fi movies. The yucks, however, are few and far between;
the story is too short and the puzzles are too weak for most gamer's blood. If you
want Meretzkian prose, take Activision up on its $9.95 offer for the original *LGOP* and
bide your time with that classic, while waiting for someone to produce an interesting 'adult'
adventure.