Bully (3 comments)
I picked up Bully last week and played it all weekend. EB Games had a special edition of the game available that included a bigger box and a dodgeball for $10 more, but I opted to go with the basic release, figuring that the only thing I could do with a dodgeball at home would be to upset Mel.
I hadn't been sure what to expect from Bully. From the start, Rockstar Games had been very quiet about its development compared to their previous work. It turns out that they were betting on Jack Thompson to do his normal anti-video-gaming-lunatic thing to publicize the game for them.
When the game was first announced, they pretty much only told us that the game was to be called "Bully" and the player would play a student at a private school. Based on that (having seen nothing of the plot or the gameplay), Thompson decried it as a "Columbine simulator" and sued Take Two Interactive (Rockstar's parent company) in an attempt to prevent the game's release. Rockstar and Take Two complied with the suit, providing gameplay demonstration to the presiding judge who then told Thompson to go away (in whatever legal terms they use), generating lots of press for the game just before its launch date.
Anyway, the game is great, and much to Thompson's disappointment, requires the main character to protect nerds from bullies to proceed in the game. After a weekend with the game, I've stopped the bullies and the preps from attacking other students and I think I'm pretty close to shutting down the greasers. I've found all the transistors and given them to the hobo who lives behind the bus, so he's taught me all the sweet hand-to-hand combat moves he learned in Korea (and used the transistors to finish his project). And I have six girlfriends.
This all puts Bully on the chronologically-ordered list of things that have recently surpassed my expectations:
- Death to Smoochy
- Team America: World Police
- Bully
[Update: 21:53] Ars has since published their full review.