HEY my first actual preview sharing.
But while I was looking for a Scarface review at Gamespy, I stumbled acorss this. So here it is, I haven't read it all yet, but I figured I'd share regardless.
http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-2/bully/736589p1.htmlJeronimo Barrera, the producer of Rockstar Games' soon-to-arrive Bully, has high hopes for his latest game. Not just for sales, but for how it'll affect the game industry as a whole. In Bully, he says that he and his team have tried to create a mass-market game that'll reach out and appeal not only to hardcore players, but to those who've maybe never played a game before.
"We're not mainstream yet. We sell one million [copies of] GTA but games aren't something you talk to your mom about," Barrera explained. "How do you create something at a human level that more than just us nerds will enjoy?" A relatable story, he asserts, is the secret. Very few people have been a Jedi, but just about everyone in America has experienced the complex and confusing microcosm of fear, excitement, and self-discovery that defines the coming of age, grade school experience. "I think the story we created is as good as any teen drama in the past," he told me, describing Bully as, "a really impressive piece of digital entertainment."
Today I got to experience the human drama firsthand thanks to a test drive of the game's final review build. I was allowed to play just a bit into the game's second of five chapters, which took me about four hours of leisurely play to reach. (The full game is said to clock in around 20 hours.) Earlier this month, GameSpy ran a detailed preview of Bully that covered a lot of the interesting game systems and rules, so check that out to get up to speed. I'm going to walk you through the early experience of actually playing it -- of being a new student at Bullworth Academy. Forgive the frequent pronoun switches.
Jimmy Hopkins Can't Win
Young Jimmy Hopkins, the game's protagonist, starts off in front of the school's gates, and it's the last moment of peace he'll have for awhile. As soon as I had him enter the grounds a bunch of older jerks ran up to harass him, picking fights with the new kid. Little GTA-style info boxes popped up to explain the simple conversation system: I could either provoke the little thugs into a serious fight, or meekly stand down to avoid conflict. Actually, I found I could also make Jimmy run away, and so far it seems no one in the game can keep up with him. Too bad there are no track and field events.
That harassment, unfortunately, was not an isolated occurrence. It seemed everyone hated the new kid, even the socially awkward nerds (who often had the funniest insults). Soon I figured out the rhythm of the game. Most days have one or two classes to attend, and as our previous preview explained, they're well worth checking out due to the character upgrades you can earn through passing their tests. The first three courses are English, art, and chemistry. Chemistry is just an uninspired PaRappa-like button-pushing contest, while art is a Qix-clone. English actually takes a bit of thought, asking you to form as many words as possible from a small pool of letters. Each course has five upgrades to earn, but the going gets tougher as you pass more and more of a class' challenges. During the later English challenges I had to cheat by pausing, just to find enough words within the short time limit. Furtively cheating in class? It really is like high school.
Classes took up a big chunk of the day, so I learned to rush around afterwards to do some of the "real" missions that would progress the storyline. (Sometimes these missions would take me into the school after normal hours, so I'd have to dodge the security guards as well as complete the objectives.) Early tasks, such as acting as a bodyguard and collecting lost "Grottos & Gremlins" character sheets, gave me some positive faction with the nerds, which lead to less harassment -- and even some friendly greetings -- as I ran around campus. It was during these initial days that I also met Gary, who may be the true subject of the game's title. A sly, manipulative, egotistical jerk who should never have gone off his meds, Gary enlisted me to help in some of his mean-spirited little pranks and crimes. Not having developed much character as of yet, Jimmy and I silently complied, wondering when he'd finally betray us.
As the days progressed I fell into a rhythm, finishing off the final tiers of chemistry and English and enjoying my noxious chemical-making prowess and newly eloquent powers of apology. (I failed an art class, but got to try again another day.) I also earned a slingshot and a skateboard, which gave me new offensive and defensive options. As I completed certain events the outside world changed to reflect the passage of time. The first big change brought fall colors and Halloween decorations, and I helped Gary cause quite a bit of mischief that night. The night's events culminated in leaving a flaming bag of something unpleasant in front of the teachers' lounge. Jimmy's ability to run like the wind came in handy again soon after.
Discretion may be the better part of valor, but sometimes I just had to dig in my heels and fight. Luckily, passing the challenges in gym class taught me some valuable new grappling moves, including a powerful cheap shot to the junk. I'd also been delivering spare radio transistors to the hobo behind the school, who demonstrated a powerful uppercut that could break through an opponent's guard. Temporary weapons like sticks and bats added further depth, and in the end I found the combat quite satisfying, if somewhat easy so far.
As the semester progressed, Jimmy also started to make some headway with the girls. Though they were repelled at first, a slightly spiffed-up wardrobe from the school store helped smooth things over, as well as his newfound sensitive side, developed through art class. After buttering them up, a small gift of flowers or chocolates usually earned a kiss, which, much like real-life kisses, boosted Jimmy's life meter beyond its normal capacity. I found out we needed to be careful, though. Kissing a girl right in front of another recent conquest turned out to be a sure way to get slapped upside the head. This is actually an example of Bully's focus on creating more interesting AI behaviors. Bully's AI characters are more aware of the world, and various things about Jimmy, than the characters in, say, the GTA games, and this sometimes leads to amusing and satisfying chains of actions and reactions in the game world.
Serious Business
As the semester drew to a close a chill was in the air, and students started bundling up before traversing the rapidly graying landscape. For my part, I bought a new pair of shorts, and Jimmy, trooper that he was, didn't seem to mind. One night Gary basically begged me to accompany him somewhere, which ended up being the decrepit school basement. After traversing several rooms of simple obstacles, we ended up in a large concrete pit. After ranting about there not being room in Bullworth for both of us, Gary called in one of the biggest -- and dumbest -- jocks in the school. Though I had not in fact said anything about his mother's relations with farm animals, he was hearing none of it, and thus the first boss battle commenced. Nimble dodges and a lot of slingshot firing won the day, and perhaps a few more allies for young Jimmy.
Chapter two began, with photography and machine shop classes replacing chemistry and English. Photography simply involved running around campus taking pictures of certain objects, while shop was a more difficult evolution of chemistry's button-pushing. (I was spinning the left analog as shown, I swear!) However, the big new was that the front gate was now open, giving Jimmy and I free run of the local town.
We soon got a tour of it, as the incredibly disgusting lunch lady sent us into town to pick up some meat and shaving razors. A preppie who'd heard about the big fight also invited me to the town's boxing gym, where I could learn more advanced fighting skills. Sounded like a plan, but I decided to wait, as there are only so many minutes in a day.
And that's about where my narrative stops, as least for now, as that marked the end of previewable content. Hopefully this has given you a better idea of what Bully's like to play; it's like a scaled-down, more tightly structured, somewhat better-polished evolution of everything Rockstar accomplished in the GTA series. The playground is smaller but the interactions are deeper, and Mr. Barrera's correct in saying that the storyline is much easier to relate to than, say, the adventures of the GTA: San Andreas crowd. (We're still homies though, CJ.)
Bully's social satire, while sharper than that of most games, hasn't been quite up to the level of GTA's yet. Nevertheless, I'm really digging the general setting and atmosphere. There's something magical about a good childhood, and Bully's evoking a number of nostalgic memories as I play. Not memories of being bullied so much (though there is that), but of looking up to adults as towering authority figures, of lacking a real concept of passing time, and of feeling like my silly dramas and concerns are more important than anything else in the world. In short, it reminds me of the wonder and terror of being a typical, self-absorbed, American child. That's pretty neat, and quite different from the "bullying simulator" that certain figures in the media have tried to portray the game as.
Bully's due out on October 17th, so look for our review of this "really impressive piece of digital entertainment" in the coming weeks. I mean, you'd better, if you know what's good for you.
