411 Games Rumor Down-Lo 04.08.03

411 Games Rumor Down-Lo 04.08.03

411 Games Quote of The Week
Oh Great, Now Sony Can Cure Cancer.
— Joseph Stanley (The Weekend Wipe-Up 04.05.03)

(411 DOWN-LO ONLINE 04-08-03: BEGIN TRANSMISSION…)

And now, gather round boys and girls because it’s time for another story from Uncle Bebito:

—————————————————————————

*little Timmy runs into room crying*

Uncle Bebito: Will you stop all that whinin’, boy! I’m trying to watch, err… play Dead Or Alive Beach Volleyball! Don’t cha know this takes strict concentration!

Little Timmy: *sniff* …but, but

Uncle Bebito: Well I prefer the front myself. But if I turn the camera ta the rear angle, I think can see her…. Oh that’s not what you’re talking about is it boy?

Little Timmy: Huh?

Uncle Bebito: Never you mind. Now tell good old Uncle Bebito what’s the big ta do here.

Little Timmy: *sniff, sniff* I was playing outside with everybody. And I, and I had the ball. And I was good at throwing the ball! I really was! But then they said we’re gonna play kick ball. And when, and when they choose teams nobody wants to play *sniff* nobody wanted to play with me! They said I’m too little! It’s not fair! I’m good Uncle Bebito! I really am!

Uncle Bebito: Heh. So they tried to give ya the shaft because you’re too small, eh? That’s what we call descrimpernation. They can’t do that.

Little Timmy: Descrim… descrin… discrimination?

Uncle Bebito: No boy! Do you have wax in your ears! I said descrimpernation! It’s when they descrimpernate against you. And that’s wrong Timmy, very wrong. As a matter of fact, that reminds me of a story…

Little Timmy: Um… maybe I’ll just go outside and watch them play instead…

Uncle Bebito: You sit your tookus right there boy! Now listen up. Back when I used to be a pilot, I used to know this employee for USAir, who happened to have the last name of Gay. The guy was a total spaz and waste of a human being. Hated his guts. But he liked me, because everybody likes me. I’m a nice guy. Anyway the retard tells me that one time he got on a plane using one of his company’s “Free Flight” programs. It’s one of those things that let you get away with not paying because you work for them or some crap like that. But, when Mr. Gay tried to take his seat, he found it being occupied by a paying passenger. So, not to make a fuss, being the punk that he is, he simply chose another seat nearby.

Unknown to Mr. Gay, another USAir flight at the airport experienced mechanical problems. The passengers of this other flight were being rerouted to various airplanes. A few were put on Mr. Gay’s flight and anyone who was holding a “free” ticket was being “bumped.” Served him right for being the cheap bum that he is.

Anyway, airline officials, armed with a list of these “freebie” ticket holders, boarded the plane to remove the free ticket housing leaches. Of course, our Mr. Gay was not sitting in his assigned seat as you may remember. So when the Ticket Agent approached the seat where Mr. Gay was supposed to be sitting, she asked a startled customer “Are you Gay?”. The man shyly nodded that he was, at which point she demanded: “Then you have to get off the plane.”

Mr. Gay, overhearing what the Ticket Agent had said, tried to clear up the situation: “You’ve got the wrong man. I’m Gay!”. This caused an angry third passenger to yell, “Hell, I’m gay too! They can’t kick us all off!” Turns out that nearly the whole stinkin’ plane was gay. Confusion reined as more and more passengers began yelling that USAir had no right to remove gays from their flights.

So do you know what the moral of the story is little Timmy?

Little Timmy: Um, no.

Uncle Bebito: Don’t be gay. Now go outside, kick one of those kids where the sun don’t shine, and get the ball back. I’m not raisin’ no punk!

—————————————————————————

(DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions of “Uncle Bebito” do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of 411 Mania, the Rumor Down-Lo, Bebito Jackson, Ashidro, and/or any of their affiliates.)


Hi, I’m Bebito Jackson, and I want to know isn’t a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice”?

We’ve got a full show for you troopers this week! Ok no, not really… I can’t back that up. The Stump Alex Lucard contest has been delayed till next week, there’s no Down-Lo Spotlight, and I’m pretty much phoning it in, but we still have the rumors… the glorious, glorious rumors.

Oh, who am I kidding… even that will be crap.

Behold the “Two Columns Left” edition of the Down-Lo. To explain for the six thousandth time, I have a Down-Lo Rating system. It’s basically a gauge I use to… Wait. Forget that. If you tools don’t know what the system is by now, then you’ll never figure it out. Just read and enjoy.


This is the Down-Lo.

I THOUGHT MONKEYS ONLY HAD TWO BALLS?
Ok, I’m just going to plagiarize a bunch of news stories from various sites with maybe a comment or two from my rumor monkey or myself stuffed in somewhere. Hey, I told you I was phoning it in and when I say I’m phoning it in, I make sure to go ALL OUT.

We can exclusively reveal that the preliminary work on Super Monkey Ball 3 is already underway at Sega’s acclaimed R&D studio, Amusement Vision, headed up by the bourbon-powered Toshihiro Nagoshi.

As work on F-Zero, co-developed with Nintendo, winds down, focus is shifting towards other projects pencilled in for the future, which include Virtua Striker and Monkey Ball games.

Did you notice that “pencilled” was misspelled? There’s no freaking two “ll”s in penciled. Seriously, some sites need to learn how to use their spellchekeer.

One insider told us yesterday, “AV is looking at greatly expanding the mechanic behind Monkey Ball. Some of the things they are working on should explode what is possible from the game, with complete spin, controlled with the second analogue stick, already in place in early tech demos.”

Woo! This is great news, and confirms gossip to the effect that has been circling for some time. “Talking to members of the team, the level of spin-friction afforded to the balls will be slight, though it will make it possible to ride walls, and have a whole new way of counter-controlling the play.”

Man, there are so many hilarious directions I could have taken this one if I just took the time. I mean really, how can you not even say “monkey ball” without laughing. Try telling one of your non game-playing friends that you’re going to buy Super Monkey Ball and see what happens.

However, it’s not all good news. “At this stage, it’s unlikely that anything of the game will be shown at E3, it’s just too early and AV has been tied up on other projects, especially Nagoshi, who’s been overseeing all kinds of blah, blah, blah.”

Let’s hurry this up…
DOWN-LO RATING: 16

INSERT FUNNY RUMOR HEADING HERE
No, I didn’t have time to think of anything funny for the title. Bite me. It’s about Sony’s Hard Drive or something…

Although it may be so obvious it’s painful, we’ll say it one more time because we feel we must: SCEA’s Hard Disk Drive (HDD) will be shown at E3 expo this May. And it will be the first time that Square reveals its simultaneous plans to unveil its plans to use the HDD with Final Fantasy XI. Expect to see them at Square and Sony’s booths, to hear about release dates, and for more to come.

Now you see how short of a story this is? Not really long enough to fill up much space on its own. So what I do is search for additional useless information to pad up the rumor a bit. See…

Square Enix U.S.A. mentioned that they will soon begin the beta test of the PS2 MMORPG Final Fantasy XI in North America.

Now that last little bit of info alone I could have stretched out for another three paragraphs.
DOWN-LO RATING: -5

TOMB RAIDER PUSHED BACK AGAIN. VIRGINS WEEP.
Hasn’t the connection between virgins and Tomb Raider fans been played out? Someone needs to come up with something wittier than that now. It wasn’t going to be me though.

While sites like our own have begun posting ads for Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness and retail stores have remained fixed with dates suggesting that Core’s newest iteration in the popular series is coming this April, sadly it is not to be.

This story was taken from IGN.com and sure enough, they had a Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness ad at the top of their page. Guess it’s ok to spread misinformation as long as you’re being paid for it. If it wasn’t, everyone at CNN would be out of a job.

Eidos is staying mum on the game’s release, but reports from well-connected sources and even well-connected analysts have confirmed that Angel of Darkness could well be delayed until summer. The fact is the game is not done, and Eidos will not release it until it’s ready.

An Eidos representative was quoted as saying, “The days of us releasing Tomb Raider games that were uncompleted crap are well behind us. Now we’re only releasing fully completed crap.”

Hey no wonder Joseph Stanley sticks to this kind of format. You can do as little or as much as you want and you still come out looking like a genius without doing any work! He deserves another plug just for that.
DOWN-LO RATING: 69

DOOM III IS UMM… DOOMED!
This next rumor is taken from Wired magazine! If anyone actually reads that thing, please send me an email along with your name and full sized picture of yourself attached for my new upcoming segment “I’m A Complete Loser!”.

The latest issue of the Wired print magazine has a new article on the development of Doom III, id Software’s upcoming and latest game in their celebrated first person shooter series. Among the more interesting tidbits in the article: Microsoft is offering lots of money to id to make an exclusive Doom III Xbox port (id hasn’t decided yet if they will do so) and in addition to the already announced multiplayer add-on there will also be a single player mission pack for Doom III.

Alright, alright… I’ll do some research this time. Give me a second… *pauses Xenosaga*

Hmm… according to my own sources (pfft) Microsoft and id Software couldn’t come to an agreement on having DOOM III as an Xbox exclusive. I would watch for DOOM III on the PC first and an Xbox port later… and then, in the interest of actually making money, it should make its way to the PS2. Notice I didn’t mention anything about a GameCube port. I did say, “in the interest of actually making money” after all.

Wait a second… *thinks back* Didn’t John Carmack already state like a bagillion years ago that “without question, the Xbox is the only console I would consider capable of running any version of Doom III.” So forget everything we just talked about for a minute. It may very well be true that Doom III will be coming exclusively to Xbox for the sheer reasoning that no other console could be deemed fit for it, as said by the developer himself.

Then again, they said that about Splinter Cel too and they still whored out shoddy versions of that game to every console that wasn’t made by Infinium Labs. (In related news, the Sega Saturn version of Splinter Cel is complete and should be released by the end of next month.)

So what’s the bottom line? I don’t know leave me alone.
DOWN-LO RATING: C

And that’s the Down-Lo. Took long enough.

Special thanks to IGN, Evil Avatar, Spong.com, and The-MagicBox for this week’s stories. I couldn’t have done it without ya, literally.


MY READERS ARE AWESOME AND I’VE GOT PROOF!
You guys say the darndest things! Here’s more proof that my audience is head and shoulders superior over everyone else’s internet videogame rumor column audiences… Yeah…

WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU GONNA DO WITH THAT PRIZE?
[In response to your most recent column]

….

[/response]

Don’t stop using that crack man, you’re on fire!

Anyway, why didn’t you tell me the next contest would be much cooler? You hate me, don’t you?

And you still haven’t sent out my prize!?

Do you realize what you’ve done!?

They’re going to break my legs Bebito!

THEY’RE GOING TO BREAK MY FREAKIN LEGS!!!
— greydragon / 1st Ever Down-Lo Contest Winner

Looks like it’s crutches time! On the real though, you’ll get it eventually. I’ve never reneged on anything before. Have faith my son.

And thanks for the praise grey, but I’m sure the mediocrity of this column more than makes up for the awesome of last week. I pride myself on inconsistency.

SEGA WILL NEVER LEARN!
Hey Beb *insert ass-kissing here*.

No, Sega will never learn regarding their little Xbox obsession as Microsoft is clearly involved in some sort of sexual favours with them. Why else would Xbox Live be required to play PSO offline?

This e-mail has been a presentation of Marc Duchaine, hopeless Animal Crossing addict.
— Marc Duchaine

Marc here is one of next week’s contestants in Stump Alex Lucard! Hopefully he’ll give him a run for his money. Gotta agree with the sexual favors thing goin’ on between Microsoft and Sega. I still maintain that Toejam & Earl III, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and Shenmue II all would have sold better if they were on the PS2 instead of Xbox. Let’s all hope that Sega has learned their lesson. What they were thinking in the first place with all that ungodly Xbox support I’ll never know. Oh yeah, the sexual favors… forgot.

BAD SPELLING + LAZINESS = AFRAID OF ALEX LUCARD
just give me the damn prize, i ant takin the tiem to spellcheck my shit or ask a real question and no one is gonna stump the smartass.

oh yea, RIdge racer 4 was on ps1 and had the rpg shit. RR5 was a pile of crap on the ps2 and the mike tyson thing- pure gold. Do darryl strawberry next.
— Mike V / Down-Lo Devotee

Cute. I stand corrected on the Ridge Racer thing. And unfortunately Darryl Strawberry was unavailable for interview. Rumor has it he was on that private jet with the owner of Girls Gone Wild…


Woo! I blew through that one like there was no tomorrow. Might be one of my shortest columns on record, I’ll have to check. Only one more thing to take care of…

Here’s Bebito Jackson with a very special announcement:

Well, it’s been quite a trip hasn’t it? Good times. Bad times. Mediocre times. Lots of those mediocre times. Believe it or not though, it’s been six months since I first started working here at 411 Games. I’ve gone from the cocky know it all that you couldn’t tell anything to, to the sad shell of a low self-esteemed sucky writer you see before you. Yes, the smarks do that to you. Don’t worry, deep down inside, I know the greatness that lives within myself… my readers and my colleagues make me aware of that every week. Why am I spouting on about nothing like it’s a Oscar acceptance speech? Because I’m leaving. Not sure for how long, but next week will be my last column at 411 for an indefinite period of time. Yes, I’m pulling a Hyatte minus the talent and audience interest. I’ve got some important things in “reality” to take care of, and until that’s straightened out there will be no more Down-Lo. Will I ever be back? Maybe. We’ll have to wait and see. I’m sure no one will care, especially because the rest of the staff here just RULES IT ALL. Read Ron Yip (greatest pissed-off gamer of all-time), Lee Baxley (man of a thousand talents and reviews to boot), Bryan Berg (most suicidal yet most “keepin’ real” gamer here), Chris Pankonin (nicest and most underrated guy at all of 411 Mania), Joseph Stanley (the funniest/most talented/best writer in the Games News Reports section, period) and of course read me, Bebito Jackson (he sucks) one more time next week. I’ll be naming my successor then. And don’t be surprised if I don’t even make mention of the fact that I’m leaving again. Till then peace, I’m out.

(411 DOWN-LO OFFLINE: END TRANSMISSION…)


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