Played on:
PS2
Rockstar really helped to define the PS2 with the release of Grand Theft Auto 3. While the series was always somewhat popular, GTA 3 really made it known. It also likely helped to sell many PS2s with people wanting to see just what this whole craze was about. Parents complained about the violence, advocacy groups complained and said it corrupted children (and still do, to this day, in regards to the sequels) and, in general, the game was surrounded by tons of hype.
Needless to say, many expected Rockstar’s future entries into the world of gaming to be just as violent and crude as the Grand Theft Auto series. Manhunt was no exception to this rule, being a pretty brutal action game in and of itself. Nor was the Warriors – fighting was pretty key there. However, as of late, Rockstar has shown a different side. Table Tennis on the 360, for example, is about as non-violent as you can get.
Forgetting this recent game, many expected Rockstar’s Bully to be a horribly violent game and to train the next generation of kids to shoot up their schools for fun and profit or some sort of mess like that. However, now that the game is out, it is easy to see that Bully is far more than Grand Theft Auto in school – it is a pretty down-to-earth simulation of what things may really be like in a boarding school -- with some Rockstar flavor, of course.
Bully places you in the role of Jimmy Hopkins, a troublemaker that has been expelled from more than his fair share of schools. Now, you get sent to Bullworth Academy, in hopes of being straightened out. Or, maybe the rest of the schools are tired of dealing with you and this is the last possible choice. Who really knows. However you got here, you’re now a student at Bullworth Academy and you need to make the best of it.
The game is, as expected, a long string of missions. A ton of non-story side missions are tossed in and can be quite fun. They’ll introduce you to some pretty colorful characters – my favorite being the homeless guy that was a former member of the army. Bring him hidden parts of his transistor radio and he’ll teach you some super secret army moves. Most of the other characters you’ll meet will fall into typical high school social groups – preps, jocks, nerds, bullies or greasers. You’ll also have prefects, students who will stop you from being a bad bad boy and take you to the principal’s office. When you get a chance to leave the school, you’ll also run into police officers who, like prefects, don’t like it when you cause trouble.
However, you can’t leave the school for the game’s first chapter – you will, however, be able to roam over most of the school’s grounds and get your feet under you. You’ll get a taste of some of the classes and get to try some missions out. At first, it makes the game feel a bit limited – who wants to only have the school to roam around, anyways? After you get through the chapter, though, the game really opens up and you can do so much more.
Yes, as mentioned in the last paragraph, you have to attend class. Well, have to may be too strong of a word – you’re highly encouraged to attend class. It isn’t useless, either, as class isn’t much more than a minigame. English, for example, jumbles up some letters and asks you to make words out of them. Chemistry is played like a rhythm game. You’ll hit certain buttons as they pass through a box on the screen. “Beating” one of these minigames will unlock new moves, let you kiss girls to get health back (after you get them to like you, of course) or give you the ability to make certain weapons in your room. I really liked this idea of class not being a meaningless element of gameplay and being vital to it instead – you are in school, after all.
