Bully

School, there is no better place to cause mayhem and act as a site of bedlam. Such is the case in Rockstar Vancouver's Canis Canem Edit, or its American name, Bully. Much controversy has been caused among those opposed to violence in video games, especially due to the T rating by the ESRB, which allows teens access to the game. In line with another Rockstar title that preceded Bully, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the game was well received by critics and sold exceptionally for a last generation title but faced legislation to have the game banned. Luckily, for gamers most attempts failed and Bully made its way from shelves across the world into homes like mine for playing and enjoyment.

In Bully, you play Jimmy Hopkins, a constant troublemaker. Your mother drops you off at the “prestigious” Bullworth academy while she and her new (6) husband go on a yearlong cruise. Upon arrival at Bullworth, you encounter the bullies and other cliques, all of which want to beat you to a bloody pulp. Early on, you meet your only friend Gary, who has aspirations of taking over the school with you at his side. Therefore, you must do favors to earn the respect of each clique in an attempt to execute Gary's plan. Through the progression of the plan, the main antagonist reveals himself and your goal for the game drastically changes from conquering the school to destroying your enemy.

While your main antagonist is a constant for most of the game, you face a different clique in each chapter of the story. The story spans an entire school year, and different times of the year occur during different chapters of the story. Chapter 1 is the beginning of the school year in fall, and your main enemies are the bully clique. With every chapter comes a new area that is focused on, with the second chapter focusing on the main part of Bullworth town as you fight the preps. This continues throughout the game and keeps the story fresh as you get a new set of enemies and a new place to explore with each chapter. The chapters are all long enough to feel as though completing one is an accomplishment.

While a new area is unlocked with each chapter, the place where you spend the majority of your time. While you focus on the missions, is the town. Once you complete the first chapter of the story, the town becomes open to explore. In town, several save locations become available through certain quests and events, giving you another bed, and place to save. Also in town are shops to buy weapons, clothes, and gifts for various uses. To pay for these various items you can do odd jobs around town such as working a paper route. The town is only a small portion of the massive sandbox that is playable in Bully; another hot spot is the academy itself. The sandbox feel of the school borrows heavily from the Grand Theft Auto series, as you are free to do as you please, and go wherever your heart desires. A few examples of your freedom are the ability to pick locks, start fights, and participate in races. In addition, where GTA is grown up and has police officers chase you down, in Bully there are prefects and teachers to hunt you down for your shenanigans, although the prefects do have the flaw of being extremely thick and easy to escape. While this sandbox feels much like one I have played in before, it recreates the feeling of a large place to traverse that never feels too big. Overall Bully takes old parts and reuses them in a fresh way that remains fun hours after you realize it is the same old sandbox with a different paint job.

While you have no restrictions in this sandbox, there are still classes to attend. While one might surmise that class would be boring and a waste of time, they would be astoundingly wrong. Classes take the form of a mini game of some sort in which you must be successful to a certain degree to pass the class. Each class you pass gives you an upgrade, gym for example gives you new moves for combat and higher accuracy with weapons. Chemistry class is a quick time event game where upon passing you can then create a new weapon, such as itching powder or stink bombs, at the chemistry set in your dorm. While failing the class has no real drawback except having to do that same challenge over again next time you have that class. The classes rotate to keep them from becoming repetitive; also, they occur at 9 AM for the morning class and 1 PM for evening classes making it easy to build time into your schedule to make class. Where sandbox games often fall flat is not giving incentive to make you want to do things that are not required, here the classes though optional, feel crucial because they help along the way. While one or two of the mini games are dreadful and drag on, such as shop and photography class, the overall enjoyment of class and the bonuses they bring outshine the little tarnish that is present with them.

One major bonus classes give is increased accuracy with weapons such as your slingshot. While the combat system is relatively simplistic, it feels very rewarding and visceral. The controls are simple but precise, square is for punches and other attacks of that variety, triangle grabs enemies to throw them or tackle them to unleash more punishment upon them. The L1 button activates the lock on auto targeting, and R1 throws or shoots whatever weapon you have selected using the R2 and L2 buttons to cycle through your arsenal. The combat is best when performing melee as the attacks look and feel as they should, painful and fun, such as when you tackle someone then beat them. While the weapons and shooting is fun as well, the true enjoyment is experimenting with all the different weapons available. Some of the weapons include stink bombs, slingshots, firecrackers, eggs, itching powder, baseball bats, and wooden paddles. Combat never seems to get old, be it itching powder to a prep or a baseball bat to a jock, it all feels great and is fun to do.

While knocking a prep or two around is great fun, finding them in a fight can be a challenge. The camera tends to swing unhinged too often, causing situations where you cannot see someone who is trying to attack you. Along with the fact that the controls for movements such as running, swimming, and biking all feel loose. While mid fight, running may not be a major issue but throughout the game, these loose controls hamper you. One instance in particular was during a race. My bike swerved causing me to lose. The controls tend to be loose while doing the same things, so after awhile you can start to create the illusion of tightness in the controls as you avoid trouble places and moves, but they are still present causing anger and frustration.

While crashing mid race may lead to a controller being broken, nothing will infuriate more than glitches and save issues. Every once in awhile the game will glitch or freeze, often during a loading screen, which occurs nearly once a minute. One glitch is to become stuck doing the same combat animation until you are knocked out and you cannot defend yourself during this glitch. Another low point is the lack of an auto save feature. With the myriad of glitches and camera issues, death will occur. Or the game will freeze causing hours of game play that was not saved to be erased. While save spots are often available, that does not rectify the fact that glitches happen, and some game play will be lost because of the exclusion of an auto save feature.

Finally, I come to the point where I must balance the good with the bad and give a decision, whether this game is worth your time. While it is by no means perfect and has one or two major flaws, the good parts far outnumber the bad. Most noteworthy though is how the game sticks with you, be it the characters or the outstandingly well-written and humorous missions. I recommend this game as a buy, though it may be older and feel much like a GTA game, it is an experience all its own.