Far and away the most egregiously misguided attempt at myth-making in games history. This isn't the worst game ever. It's not the weirdest game ever. It is not the 'first American produced visual novel.' Limited Run Games seems content to simply upend truth and provenance to push a valueless narrative. The 'so bad it's good' shtick serves only to lessen the importance of early multimedia CD-ROM software, and drenching it in WordArt and clip art imparts the notion that this digital heritage was low class, low brow, low effort, and altogether primitive.

This repackaging of an overlong workplace sexual harassment/rape joke is altogether uncomfortable at best. Further problematising this, accompanying merch is resplendent with Edward J. Fasulo's bare chest despite him seemingly wanting nothing to do with the project. We've got industry veterans and games historians talking up the importance of digital detritus alongside YouTubers and LRG employees, the latter making the former less credible. We've got a novelisation by Twitter 'comedian' Mike Drucker. We've got skate decks and body pillows and more heaps of plastic garbage for video game 'collectors' to shove on a dusty shelf next to their four colour variants of Jay and Silent Bob Mall Brawl on NES, cum-encrusted Shantae statue, and countless other bits of mass-produced waste that belongs in a landfill. Utterly shameful how we engage with the past.

Reviewed on Sep 25, 2023


7 Comments


7 months ago

I want to print this review and post it on my wall. I'm gonna shove LRG into a locker and take all their copies of El Viento.

7 months ago

you didn't actually replay plumbers don't wear ties to write this review, did you? If so, that's some serious dedication.

7 months ago

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7 months ago

I discovered Plumbers Don't Wear Ties like most people of culture have, by watching the AVGN video, and since then no game has achieved to make me feel the same amount of discomfort that this pirce of media (Aside of The Guy Game I guess, but that one goes even further than discomfort into boderline abject horror), and the fact this is getting re-released boggles my mind so fucking hard.

That second paragraph is fire, excellent review, and I might not be very familiar with LGR, but everything I've heard about them is not very positive, and this doesn't help for sure.

7 months ago

I found out this project was a thing because of a tweet from Stop Skeletons From Fighting and it really felt a lot weird that someone out there thought this was something worth recovering. I dunno, I get they need to sell a product, but the tweets LRG makes about this try so hard to make it look like it is something interesting, saying stuff like "it's the worst game ever made!" when Big Rigs is still a thing. This is like if tomorrow someone decided to make a physical collection for newer systems of shitty shovelware titles from the NDS and the Wii and pretend there's something special about them. There are more interesting bad games out there than this. Things are usually forgotten for a reason, and this game has a lot of reasons to have been forgotten.

7 months ago

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6 months ago

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6 months ago

for every digital eclipse there is a guy who has mike druckers contact information

6 months ago

I wish for the nuclear annihilation of modern videogames "collectors" chipping away at the soul of any medium they breathe poison upon

5 months ago

Sincerely thought the body pillow thing was an off-handed joke but that's real, somehow. What a vile company.