Attic of the Underdogs

Review by Underdogs:

Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 is one of the most sought-after oldies in existence. It is ironic, then, that it happens to be one of the worst computer games ever made in any genre. Even more ironic (and incredulous) is the fact that it was designed by Steve Meretzsky, the creative meistro behind such classics as Infocom's A Mind Forever Voyaging and the original Leather Goddesses of Phobos.

So what makes this game so awful it should be forgotten? The more you play, the more you can't shake the sinking feeling that Meretzsky is perhaps trying to appeal only to the testosterone-high, pea-brained section of the gaming market. Just about everything else in the game (except the good graphics-- but then, it takes up 14MB of disk space) is either badly designed, or badly executed. In the beginning, you can choose to play as either Zeke, Lydia, or Barth the alien who crash-landed on earth. Despite this illusion of longevity, each path you take can be finished in a few hours-- there are few items to use, and you don't even need to use everything you can take. Playing Lydia is exactly the same as playing Zeke's game, except that you screw males instead of females (yup, you heard that right-- ergo, that testosterone appeal), and Barth's path is even shorter. Because the game uses a one-click-does-all scheme, you can finish the game merely by clicking madly everywhere on the screen (it's not easy separating items that can be picked up from the rest).

Overall, the game is a big disappointment and a disgrace to the Infocom name. Juvenile dialogues, insipid puzzles, and out-of-place "mature" content seem like Meretzsky might be targeting this game a tad too narrowly. Still, that's no excuse-- Meretzky's own Spellcasting games were also intentionally sophomoric, but they were much, much more enjoyable to play and do require intelligence to solve. LGOP2 *might* be considered an underdog for some, but not unless you lower the standards to ground-level. Those who've been looking for this game-- proceed at your own risk.

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Screenshots © The Good Old Days