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snopes
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Comment: I was wondering about the urban legend of the game "Polybius",
which has quite a story behind it.

More info can be found here:
http://coinop.org/g.aspx/103223/Polybius.html
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Tootsie Plunkette
Buy a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella


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Someone says it was a prank.

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Oni
Noah's Lark


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All documents relating to this game point back to the original source of
http://coinop.org/g.aspx/103223/Polybius.html

I would think it was a hoax, since only one souce can be found on it and it's not even all that reliable.

http://www.gooddealgames.com/articles/Videogame%20Urban%20Legend%20-%20Polybius.html

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rainbowmonk
The Red and the Green Stamps


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quote:
from Good Deal Games:

Polybius was a puzzle game that had a very limited release, reportededly restricted to less than a dozen arcades in a small Portland suburb.
I'm not sure to which Portland they are referring, but I would assume that a "small Portland suburb" would certainly have far less than a dozen arcades. I don't think they really have to explicitly say "less than a dozen". Anyone know of a Portland suburb with that many arcades?

[edited for clarity]
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mikprosser
The Red and the Green Stamps


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This is obviously a hoax, I searched all around the net and all I've found were two articles about it, and the second article just seems to get all of it's information from the first one.

And it's also kind of odd that they only have a screenshot of the title screen and not any gameplay, nor do they even describe the gameplay in any way. Oh yeah, and the stuff about men in black suits pretty much proves that this is BS.
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JOJO
I'll Be Home for After Christmas Sales


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I've got one of the older books on snopes' main page, "Rumor". It has something in it similar, but the video game is a test for hand eye
co-ordination used by the army for recruitment. The thing that really poped that rumor into my head was a mention of "men in black suits", if I recall correctly, they're in the original legand too.

-Jo "not these guys" Jo
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*Astrik*
Xboxing Day


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The wording scrams UL to me. "The history of this game is cloudy, there were all kinds of strange stories about how kids who played it got amnesia afterwards, couldn't remember their name or where they lived, etc." Ooo! ETC! [Razz]

A comment someone posted:
quote:
I think Polybius was the name of a many-eyed monster in Greek mythology.
Actually, she's thinking of Polyphemus and he was a cyclops. Uh, that was the first thing I thought of, too. [dunce]

Edit: Wait a minute...Polyphemus aside, when I said the name of that game out loud, it sounds like "Poly-BS." Let's see..."Poly" means "many" but can it also mean "much" so this game can translate to "Much BS?" [Razz]

Edit again: Turns out Polybius was a historian.
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LittleDuck
Happy Xmas (Warranty Is Over)


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It also sounds like Poly-by-us.

LittleDuck

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