Though European as I may be, I refuse to refer to is as it’s European title “Canis Canim Edit” which supposedly came out of pressure on Rockstar to censor the title (over informed parents and such assuming the game was promoting bullying).
“Bully” followed a train of awesome releases from Rockstar Games throughout the PlayStation 2 era. “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas”, and “The Warriors” preceeded it in the 2 fall/ autumn release calendars in the years ahead of it, and speaking personally as a fan of both those 2 games you can certainly see the progression of certain ideas within the 3rd person gameplay.
It’s fair to say Bully’s story is a little over the top, loaded with cliché characters and situations that would fit well in a National Lampoons movie. Though Rockstar are great with social satire and creating distinguishing characters to fit the story mold so by no means is that a critique.
Playing as Jimmy Hopkins, a troubled kid, dealing with a fruit loop of a mother and a no-nonsense stepdad you’re cast off to a boarding school because it’s presumably the easy option to ensure you’re disciplined. Within this school you find yourself quickly to be the small fish in a big pond, keeping your head low and trying to fly under the radar is by no means an option. Trying to find your place within the schools social classes through a wide variety of missions, whilst making sure to attend your in-game classes (all done through a variety of fun mini-games, puzzles or quizzes) is your driving objective.
Adding to the story engagement is the fact that this story rolls along over the calendar year. If you progress your main story objective missions you’ll eventually see a plenty of seasonal changes to the many plains you can visit, along with the clothing of surrounding characters, and set pieces designed around these events.
One such memorable event is the Christmas period. Such Christmas themed changes include Christmas clothing (complete with cheesy Christmas jumper), and your entire school being decorated for Christmas. One personal touch I loved wasting time with for a while was the snow outside allowing for some snowball creation for you to annoy people with.
Whilst tis’ the season. You’ll get to do a simple rhythm game section playing in the schools Christmas show, and these kinds of rhythm sections are no stranger to Rockstar Games if you’ve played GTA: San Andreas. You’ll also help your in game hobo friend (who teaches you fighting techniques for collectibles) decorate for Christmas and kick a few elves asses along the way too.
I feel like more games could benefit from having a story advance over the course of a year and throw nods in to holidays and seasonal events regardless of what religion or culture they come from. Seeing your common place in game surroundings change along with new music to accompany it, it’s small details like that that can go along way to make a rudimentary paint by numbers video game story become that extra bit more memorable.
It’s like how you’ll have a TV sitcom that may take place over a year, and throw in the odd Halloween or Christmas episode, or an episode relating to bad weather or summer heat (my mind is defaulting to Kenan and Kel here, but you know, many sitcoms did this).
If you haven’t checked out Bully before, or if it’s been a long time since you did… then I certainly recommend it, it still holds up to this day regardless of some aging visuals.
Bully has recently seen a 10th anniversary release on iOS and Android making it as available as it’s ever been.
Personally I picked up the game in it’s original format which had been re-released on PlayStation 4 (along with trophies). Bully: Scholarship Edition is also available for purchase on the XBOX 360 and XBOX One marketplace (backwards compatible title). You can even get the game for Nintendo Wii (and play the disc on a WiiU if you hit up Amazon or other used game sellers).