A couple weekends ago I settled grudges between four different gangs, I passed English, Chemistry, Art, and Gym with flying colors, I bought a really sweet bike, I trash-canned some jocks who were trying to pick a fight with me, I won a lighthouse in a boxing tournament, I learned martial arts from a hobo in exchange for broken radio parts, I won a teddy bear at the carnival, and I helped my alcoholic English teacher avoid getting fired. Over the next few days I “finished my term” at Bullworth, but I’ve still got tons left to do.

Bully is everything I liked about GTA3, minus everything I didn’t like about it. There’s still a big, sprawling world with tons of stuff to do, it runs in an improved version of the same engine, there’s still tons of variety in the missions, but your sniper rifle is replaced by a slingshot, your grenades are replaced by stink bombs, you can talk your way out of most conflicts (if you’ve passed enough English classes), and nobody dies EVER, which is a really refreshing change of pace. There is still lots of violence, but the majority of it is used to assert your dominance over violent thugs and make them stop picking on weaker kids, and it’s all fistfights (with great, simple, schoolyard fistfighting mechanics). There is no reward whatsoever for random violence (unlike the GTAs, where everyone carries cash), and you can actually use authority figures to your advantage by luring someone into hitting you in front of them and watching them get dragged away to the principal’s office or the police station. If you get caught by the cops or the hall-monitors, on the other hand, the worst you can do is stomp on your captor’s foot or punch him in the crotch, and then run away and hide in a garbage can or a locker until he gives up looking for you. Hitting girls or little kids is one of the most egregious offenses in the game, and will get you sent straight to the principal for a stern reprimand and the confiscation of most of your hard-earned stuff.

It’s also significantly more gratifying to get a health bonus by making out with a girl who you’ve wooed with chocolates and flowers and gotten out of a jam or two than it is to get a health bonus by picking up a random hooker and then face the moral dilemma of whether or not you want to run her over and take your money back afterwards. It’s also pretty funny to watch, since the game’s protagonist is about five feet tall, and the girls are all significantly taller, and if you accidentally make out with one of your girlfriends while another of your girlfriends is nearby they get into a hair-pulling girl-fight over you, which is rather amusing.

On the downside, there’s no radio, but since there’s also no carjacking (there is bicycle-jacking, though) there’s really no opportunity to listen to the radio anyway, and the game’s excellent, moody, Danny-Elfman-esque background music more than makes up for it.

I also have to say that trash-canning jocks who try to pick fights with me is one of the most gratifying video game experiences I’ve ever had.

I “finished” the game last week, but in true Rockstar fashion, even though I “finished” it, I still only have 75% completion. There are still bike rallies and go-kart races to win, rubberbands, CCG cards, and garden gnomes to collect, lawns to mow, and an untold number of hidden mini-missions. The other night, right before bed, I rode my scooter into the driveway of a retirement home, and a little old lady waddled up to ask me a favor. Unfortunately, while you’re riding a bike or scooter, the button that normally targets people so you can talk to them punches instead, and I accidentally punched this poor little old lady right in the crotch. Then I spent the next fifteen minutes on the run from the police, who don’t take kindly to ruffians who punch little old ladies in the crotch.

Rockstar Vancouver also gets major kudos for making the exact opposite game to the one that drooling, headline-hungry fucktards who-shall-not-be-named accused them of making, not only because it makes those idiots look like the idiots they are, but also because it’s a really pleasant change of pace from the head-shots and “Xtreme-ness” that normally fill games from not-Japan. When was the last time YOU played an action RPG in which nobody dies?

At this point I honestly feel that Bully is the best video game I’ve ever played. It’s even ever-so-slightly better than Rez and Rakugaki Showtime.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 8th, 2007 at 10:09 am and is filed under video games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.