Plumbers Don't Wear Ties

WARNING: THIS GAME IS NOW AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET ARCHIVE.

My god, what is this? Does this even deserve to be called a game? 'Cause it sure doesn't qualify as one! It's actually more like a DVD/Laser Disk menu or a PowerPoint slideshow/presentation. The gameplay is so non-existent, at one time it could actually be played on internet video. 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.

One of the weirdest and worst games ever made, Plumbers Don't Wear Ties was originally intended to be wholly FMV, but was changed to a slideshow to avoid an "Adults Only" rating from the ESRB, since, originally released in mid-1993 for Windows 3.1, the 3DO version was released around the time they were founded, in September 1994. The game never ended up getting an ESRB rating.

First, there's the Kirin Entertainment logo, which certainly knows how to freak you out with its spiral distortion.

Now, let's have a look at that title screen.

It looks like it was "made by a kindergarten student in Microsoft Paint", according to James Angry Nintendo Nerd.

Also, despite the 3DO version being advertised as a "full-motion video", nope only the intro is FMV.

Jeanne Basone (shown here), 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; it was therefore not intended to be published and was rather a private project just for fun and it should have really stayed that way. She also said that she played Jane as a favor for her friend. However, for some weird reason she decided to release it to the public as she became curious how many people would buy it. It was given a full retail price ($57, to be more exactly precise); to pour salt on the wound, due to its obscurity, a copy of this game costs no less than $100 or so nowadays, but come on now, a PlayStation game costs less!

Aside from the FMV intro, the rest of the game plays like a slideshow with filler and filters littered throughout, generic and annoying music (with some exceptions such as the 3DO version's credits music), badly cut-and-pasted images from the source images, and random image filters that only make it look more bizarre, and perhaps frightening, such as these:

As for the so-called "story-line" (if you can even call it that), it's very poorly written in that it makes absolutely no sense and feels more like a bunch of random things happening than a coherent plot. In the beginning, John (one of the main characters) has a dream which itself is really weird. He watches himself racing in a NASCAR Winston Racing Series event at Saugus Speedway in the early 1990s, while a panda in a car and other stuff appear...ending the dream with a weird facial expression of John's mother (who, by the way, is not actually voiced by the same actress that portrays her, but the actress who voices her is another character portrayed by her). The whole entire race/dream sequence makes no sense at all and is nothing but a bunch of images through filters and adds nothing to the plot. The moment you see and hear Jane's (Jeanne Basone's character) dad, he becomes very loathsome and obnoxious you wanna punch him in the face; also, he's not only Jane's dad, he's also the narrator of the story, by the name of Harry Arnis.

At certain points in the game, you can determine the outcome of the story by selecting a choice box. However, in the 3DO version you can only make a selection after the narration for each choice ends (this voiceover when you pick this decision is not in the Windows version, which only shows the three decisions and no images), and your "wrong" decisions lead to scolding by the narrator before returning yourself to the decision screen. Even more stupid, the game gives you either another chance and choosing 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 being "something different", no matter the future choices and not choosing to have another chance. 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 or something, which comes across as more disturbing than funny.

The scoring system is rudimentary. Notably, it is completely impossible to get a positive score by any means. According to numerous sources, the highest possible score is...-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 decisions always make your score go downward.

There's a chase sequence that 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.

For no reason other than most likely padding out the story, the game has an ongoing "battle of the narrators" in-between scenes. A pointless blooper was even 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 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. This may have been made before the developers were even aware of the rating system, though. In fact, 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 this...

There is a cutscene where both Jane and John are doing their normal routine, they take a shower (there is a code where it removes the censorship, which are weird faces). You are warned by a message at first if you want to avoid the nude scenes by "closing your eyes till the music stops."

Oh, and the title is actually misleading. John does wear a tie, a polka dot one like the one in the title screen.

This game is truly what forever killed the 3DO in its entirety. Because the story doesn't make a lick of sense, and the images are hideously rendered, the game as a whole is nothing but frightfully BAD. Those who are easily offended should simply not play this. Jeanne Basone and everyone else should be ashamed of themselves. This does not belong on your PC.