Rich kid blues - A new generation Game

Bully is all about Jimmy Hopkins, a rich kid dumped by his parents at an infamous boarding school where he has to survive bullies, nerds and even teachers.

BULLY (A.K.A CANIS CANEM EDIT)
PUBLISHER: Rockstar Games
DEVELOPER: Rockstar Vancouver
GENRE: Action Adventure
RELEASE DATE: Oct 17, 2006
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 1
ESRB: Teen (for Crude Humor, Use of Tobacco & Alcohol, Violence, Sexual Themes, Language) PLATFORMS: PS2,Wii, Xbox 360, PC GAME SCORE: 7.8/10

Care to venture a guess about what Rockstar’s Bully is about? If you said you play a kid standing up to bullies, then you got it right.

In this third person adventure game, you play Jimmy Hopkins, a red-haired 15-year-old. His newly re-married mother and her new rich husband have decided to sail off on a honeymoon cruise for a whole year. This would have been great, had they not dumped Jimmy at Bullworth Academy, one of the country’ most infamous boarding schools.

Jimmy, now, has a whole school year to find a way to climb up the social ladder, by warding off bullies, teachers and some nerd who are out to get him. The settings are brilliant, and it would seem Rockstar has thought of everything including shrubbery at the end of the field where Jimmy goes to smoke his granny’ cigars.

There are the usual dorms, a playground, a cafeteria, and your run-of-the-mill classrooms.

Just like in a real school, as soon as the bell rings, you have to get yourself to class, or face the wrath of the prefects for playing hooky.

Most of the game play is fairly linear and very GTA-inspired (Rockstar’s prime offering), with missions scattered around the school ground and mini games that can be played in classes. You know there is a mission to play where you see the yellow ‘halo’ like the ones you would have seen if you have played GTA. The point of the missions is to earn the respect of various student types, namely nerds, jocks, preps, greasers, and bullies. In the course of the game, these student groups will either act as aides or obstacles depending on your reputation. While this is a very interesting concept, it makes little sense when you are playing a mission that requires you to mar factions with whom you have just earned your brownie points with through a previous mission.

Mini-games form a big part of game play as Jimmy must attend two classes on most days. Mini-games come in a few varieties too: in English class, Jimmy is required to come up with as many words as possible from a given set of letters with the countdown timer ticking; passing art class requires Jimmy to draw boxes while avoiding dangers. The Challenges themselves are not very demanding. Most are concise and modest, and grant suitable rewards upon their completion. Jimmy has to avoid getting into the bad books of his teachers by ensuring he wears the school uniform, and getting to bed before a certain hour. Time is a very important factor in the game, and keeping time through the game adds to the tension, and the fun. The only real issue that most gamers have with this game is its somewhat antiquated graphics. Also, with the X-box version, load times are pretty slow. What is really brilliant in this game is the innovative story line, and while Jimmy’ character starts off as a spoilt brat, the challenges that require him to defend other students completely redeems him. All this makes this offbeat Rockstar offering a real gem.