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Plumbers Don't Wear Ties
There is nothing like making a game that is nothing more than a simple slideshow.
Genre(s):
Visual Novel
Platform(s):
MS-DOS 3DO Interactive Multiplayer Microsoft Windows Nintendo Switch PlayStation 4 Xbox One PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X/S
Release Date:
MS-DOS NA: 1993 3DO Interactive Multiplayer NA: September 30, 1994 Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S WW: September 2023
Developer(s):
United Pixtures
Publisher(s):
United Pixtures (PC) Kirin Entertainment (3DO) Limited Run Games (Definitive Edition)
Country:
United States
""This is one of the worst things I have ever seen in my life. On the box, it says: "Plays like a game… but feels like a MOVIE!!!" Well that's horseshit, it does not play like a game, and it certainly does not feel like a movie, it's a slideshow that verges on being softcore porn, but it isn't that either! It's like some kind of experimental art project, if I just made a bunch of shit and put all kinds of filters on it, that would be the same as this miserable pile of f**k. It would also be the same to go take a shit on a piece of toast on top of a roof while wearing a fish mask singing "I'm Too Sexy".""
— The Angry Video Game Nerd
""The target audience will be quite disappointed by the lack of any real nudity, and everyone else will simply be aghast at the fact that such a poorly made game was allowed to be unleashed upon humanity.""
— All Game Guide, actually the most positive review of the game
Plumbers Don't Wear Ties is an adult-oriented "romantic comedy" visual novel/dating sim game developed and published by Kirin Entertainment for 3DO Interactive Multiplayer on September 30, 1994. Although the game did have an MS-DOS version, it had very limited distribution and was published by United Pixtures itself in 1993, both versions were released only in North America. The game stars Edward J. Foster and Jeanne Basone as John and Jane, respectively; two people who are being pressured by their respective parents to go out and find a spouse. The player's task is to get John and Jane together. This game caused the downfall of 3DO and was considered by many to be the worst game ever made.
Plumbers Don't Wear Ties received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics for its lackluster production value, nonsensical storyline, poor acting and humor, and for primarily being presented as a slideshow despite being advertised as a full-motion video game. The game is considered one of the worst video games of all time.
At E3 2021, Limited Run Games announced a re-release of the game coming to Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series: X/S
In 2023, An Announcement Trailer for the re-release titled "Definitive Edition" came out and was revealed to be released in September.
Note: this game was made to be bad, it was created just for fun, but it was released publicly anyway out of curiosity as to how many people would buy it, as stated in "Trivia"
False advertising: Of course, we should start with the game's main problem, because although the back of the box says that the game is in full motion, it is a slide show with pre-recorded dialogue and music, the only thing that counts as "full motion" or video is the intro, and this was one of the main reasons why the game was heavily criticized.
On the cover box it says you have to be 17 (according to the 3DO age rating board) to play this, meanwhile one of the options says you have to be 18 to see that option (See #WIIDNWT 9 for more info).
The only gameplay there is in the game at all is simply choosing the right scenarios so as not to lose the game, at one time it could be played on YouTube. On top of all that, it's pretty poorly programmed because once one of the actors is talking, you can't change the selection or choose (Only in the 3DO Version), and the player's "wrong" decisions lead to scolding by the narrator before returning them to the decision screen. Even more stupid, the game gives the player either another chance and chooses the other choice from the wrong one, or restarting the game entirely. It could just be better to be scolded and lose points or the ending be "something different", no matter the future choices and not choosing to have another chance.
In a vein entirely unlike The Henry Stickmin Collection, some of the fails make absolutely no sense. One example is during the point in which Jane considers Thresher's initial proposal to strip for him; if Jane chooses to accept the proposal, she subsequently pulls out a belt that she uses as a noose around Thresher's neck and appears to ride him as if he were a mule, which comes across as more disturbing than funny as its nothing more than a BDSM act.
In fact, it is also possible to port this game for Microsoft PowerPoint with no downgrades, just using hyperlinks for the main menu and for the choices.
The voice acting is terrible and seems to have been recorded in a basement.
The plot seems to make absolutely no sense and consists of completely random events, for example, the boss wants to first rape and then murder the employee, but then offers her a monetary deal, which she agrees to, which makes no sense.
The title on the title screen looks like it was made in Paint by AVGN, and the rest of the screen just looks bland. The game's logo on the cover looks nicer, for some reason it wasn't carried over to the game.
The game's opening comes across as incredibly weird and out-of-place;
The intro comes across as "slap-together nonsense", as its nothing but a bunch of speedway photos put through filters which were probably of John dreaming about racing cars. Additionally, the speedway intro plays no part in the plot whatsoever.
After the speedway scene, there's a scene where the panda is cut-out of the image on John sleeping.
Lastly, it ends with the sound effect of a car crashing and a close-up John's mother's face, revealing it was all a dream alongside the opening credits where John's mother calls John on the phone and the plot begins from there.
In the 3DO version, pretty much everything is censored, which is the crossed nose, while the MS-DOS version has no censorship at all, which makes no sense at all, however, there is a code to remove the censorship on 3DO (See trivia for more info).
Rudimentary scoring system. Notably, it is completely impossible to get a positive score by any means. to GameFAQs, the highest possible score is drumroll please, -170,000. This is because after the decision where Thresher tells Jane to take her clothes off, your score changes from 30000 to -20000, even though that was the correct decision, and the rest of the correct decisions will always make your score go downward.
The game's not rated 18+, but to beat the game, you have to select the choice that explicitly says that you have to be 18 or older to watch. One of the choices you can pick right after is even more sexual, but it's the wrong choice and after they scold you it shows a guy wearing a chicken mask upside down. This may have been made before the developers were even aware of the rating system, though. Note that this voiceover when you pick this decision is not in the MS-DOS version, which only shows the three decisions and no images.
The narrators are completely unnecessary in the game and they behave like absolute idiots which quite often annoys the player.
For no reason other than most likely padding out the story, the game has an ongoing "battle of the narrators" in-between scenes.
The game is momentarily unrealistic because, for example, you can see gunshot marks on the screen when the shots are not aimed at the screen.
Why some slides have filters imposed on them, is unknown and at least a quarter of all slides have a filter applied which is completely unnecessary and additionally spoils the realism of the game.
A pointless Blooper/Outtake was left in where John, at one point, accidentally says he's "been searching for me" instead of "searching for [Jane]", followed by the rest of the cast and crew laughing at his mistake.
The chase sequence is ridiculously bad, as it has several images that look like they're taken from a vacation album, such as Jane hugging and shaking hands with strangers, Jane and John posing in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre (currently known as TCL Chinese Theatre), and even Jane and Thresher happily reenacting a "damsel-in-distress" scenario on some train tracks'. These, along with the fact that the "normal" pictures feel very disjointed, only add to the confusion of the scene.
The game sometimes has strange noises like barking dogs combined with applause after this shootout.
Most of the music in the game is quite annoying and sounds like something from a movie from the 50s, the 80s, or older, and if that wasn't enough, most of it occurs during gameplay.
Back when it launched, this was given a full retail price, $57. To pour salt on the wound, due to being very rare, a copy of this game costs no less than $100 nowadays.
Redeeming Qualities
Even though most of the music is bad, it does have some nice tunes in it, with the title screen music being a good example and the one from the ending.
This is one of the "so bad, it's good' games.
On 12 July 2023, it was announced that a remaster titled "Definitive Edition" will come out in September with new features such as 4K Support, Gallery Menu, Interviews, and Audio Commentaries featuring actors from the game itself, as well as James Rolfe himself who launched the title into the Zeitgeist once more. Nicer Visuals, Deleted Scenes, a Progress Chart, a New Game Mode, Plumb the Depths, Higher Quality Audio, Uncensored Cutscenes without the use of a Code, and more.
This product belongs to the "MAJOR CODE RED" category of the AVGN's Shit Scale.
Most of the time it was an obscure game with rather few reviews at the time, and if not for the AVGN review, the game would most likely have forever fallen into a forgotten part of video game history.
In giving the game a 15% rating, Diego Antico wrote: "It's hard to determine where Plumbers Don't Wear Ties is at its most horrendous. Is it in the pathetic music department? The graphics (or its lack thereof)? The awful gameplay?" Allgame gave the game one star. The site made note of how despite it being advertised as a full motion video, it was simply a slideshow. In The Video Game Bible, Andy Slaven said that the "humorous" results from choosing the wrong option "can't save this title from being horrible." Video Games & Computer Entertainment magazine criticized the game for being all just "still pictures of the director's friends acting like goofballs and delivering bad voiceovers", also stating: "Not even the promise of some naked pictures could save this disc from becoming a joke around here. Avoid this one at all costs, it looks like a bad Public Access show and that's the pits." PC Gamer, giving the game a 3%, said that the game was funny for only 30 seconds, calling the game an "irksome and yobbishly executed pseudo-pornographic photo story with the wit and charm of an elephant's arse". PC Format rated the game a 4%, the lowest rating the magazine had ever given to a video game. The game was considered by the German game website Nexgam to be "a single joke and objectively certain the most rotten game that has ever been on a console.".
PC Gamer dubbed Plumbers Don't Wear Ties a "shallow, hateful waste of a game, [that] may very well be responsible for having killed the 3DO, interactive fiction, and the whale", naming it #1 on its "Must NOT Buy" list in May 2007. It was #27 in UGO Network's 102 "Worst Video Games of All Time", concluding "If you have the patience, check out a video walkthrough online of either the worst storyline in gaming history, or a post-modern masterpiece", and #4 in Screen Play's, calling the game a "hilariously dodgy FMV adventure with actors who make Home and Away look like Shakespeare." The game was also put in 411mania.com's 2008 "Hall of Shame", with writer Vincent Chiucchi stating "By Jove, this could very well be the worst game ever!" Even the game's cover art was one of 1UP.com's "Worst Videogame Box Covers", criticizing its use of clip art and fonts.
IGN has cited Plumbers Don't Wear Ties as "a symbol for everything that was wrong with giving a license to anyone that wanted one"; referring to the fact that 3DO publishers only needed to pay a $3 royalty per disc and did not have to join a stringent licensing program like other game consoles, which led to many low-quality adult-oriented video games being released for the system.
James Rolfe in his Angry Video Game Nerd persona stated Plumbers Don't Wear Ties is "like a weird sort of college experiment [in art], if one can even count it as a game" and sees it as an achievement to have been the worst game he ever saw in his life, as well as the game "not play[ing] like a game, and it certainly does not feel like a movie", but rather "a slideshow that verges on being soft-core porn".
The AVGN has placed it in his shit scale at the highest possible level (Major Code Red), intended for games that do not qualify as games. It was also ranked #1 on Tat's 100 Worst Games of All Time. BartekGM also hailed it as the worst game of all time, worse than CrazyBus.
Trivia
To get the uncensored scenes in the 3DO version you have to press Up, Down, Right, Left, Down, Right, and X during the introduction, while the girl is talking.
Jane's actress, Jeanne Basone,[1] a former wrestler at GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling) where she was known as “Hollywood”, talked about her appearance in the game at GameFAQs. She said that she was in it only as a favor to a friend and that she didn't expect it to hit the shelves.
The game was originally intended to be fully FMV but was changed to a slideshow to avoid an "Adults Only" rating from the ESRB since it was released around the time they were founded. The game never ended up getting an ESRB rating.
Jeanne Basone, who played Jane, said that this game was not intended to be published and was a private project just for fun. She also said that she played Jane as a favor for her friend. However, she decided to release it to the public as she became curious about how many people would buy it.
This game is also cited in some game reviews, as one of the primary reasons for the commercial failure of the 3DO game system.
Despite the name, John does wear a tie throughout most of the game, though out of reluctance.
Believe it or not, the game may serve as one of the early Western examples of visual novels. [2]
Jane's father and the first narrator are both played by the same guy.
Much of the music in the PC version comes from Ole Georg Music. A notable example is "The Head Clown", which plays when the player has messed up something.
The page on the Crappy Games Wiki gained recognition as the very first page of the original Qualitipedia, dating back to 2013 by original founder Grust, known back then as DisneyVillain.
