Bully

"Bully Takes Out The Brass Knuckles And Brings You To Bullworth Academy"

Rockstar made themselves famous by releasing the controversial series, Grand Theft Auto. But does Rockstar really make games for mature audiences? Well no, they got Midnight Club, Smuggler's Run and Table Tennis. But this time, Rockstar brings out an action game for teenage audiences that pay homages to many teen films.

Story - You've been expelled from many schools. Your mother has divorced a number of times. You are now enrolled to the most brutal school ever, Bullworth Academy. You'll meet many cliques and freaks. You'll make friends and rivals. You dare yourself to take missions from easy to outrageous. You are Jimmy Hopkins, a fifteen-year-old student who is now trying to avoid and stopping bullying at all costs, including the sociopath, Gary Smith.

Gameplay 8/10 - At first, you'll learn some of the controls, and the rules of the school then you will learn the basic attacks in order to fight. After that, you can choose to work in classes to enhance your abilities or skip classes if you find them really boring. The right directional button brings you the name of the missions and the location in the radar and the left directional button brings you the name of the money-making jobs and a class subject when the bell rings in case if you don't know where the location is.

Like GTA, Jimmy can walk, run, run fast, and even run faster without resting by just mashing the X button. Square is use for light attacks but holding Square would unleash a strong attack in different combos. Circle is basically jumping, since it's only useful to jump off a tree or reaching higher sections. Triangle is the action button, used to open doors, starting missions or even interacting with object. The main important button is L1, the lock-on button, used to target enemies to fight, making bad comments or apologizing with X and Circle buttons. To students or people, it is used to greet, give gifts, hire for back-ups, kissing or making bad comments. Also, using the right analog stick to control the camera would switch targets if you're using the lock-on button.

But for fighting (with L1), Square is to punch your target, Triangle is to grapple, Circle is to drag them onto the floor (while grappling) or bully the targets if they're low on health.

At first, if you cause any troubles such as fighting, harassing or annoying the school staff, prefects or cops, your warning meter would go up and they would start chasing you. There are many ways to stop this, such as hiding in a locker, or apologizing them if your warning meter is average if you pass all English classes. If you are captured by these people in a average warning meter, you can push'em away by mashing the Triangle button but it will slightly increase the meter. If captured with a full warning meter, you are busted and you will lose your items, and weapons, then you are forced to go back to classes, do chores or sleep if the time is late night.

The weapons are just like any kiddie weapons. You got a slingshot, bottle rocket launcher, spudgun, marbles and chemical-based weapons such as itching powder. The weapons are extremely useful if you are fighting a group of enemies, but the slingshot is the only weapon with unlimited ammo that can quickly knock enemies down. You can also ride bikes. X is to pedal, circle is to jump, square is to brake and the L1 and R1 buttons are used to punch on the left or right, just like Road Rash.

Sneaking happens occasionally, but it is a major pain in the rear. R3 is to crouch, you can sneak around and run faster by tapping X. There's not much added to sneaking.

Also, there is a time system. The time system would bring up jobs in afternoons and missions for morning til evening. However, each day lasts for 18 minutes.

The only disadvantages of the game are the camera control, the enemy A.I, and the bosses. Why the camera control? Because if you move it while controlling Jimmy at the same time, you won't make him turn, which is a total distraction. For the enemy A.I., they fight extremely weak, even if a barrage of enemies surrounds you, You can take'em down easily. Lastly, the bosses are not even difficult. Most of them fight like basic enemies with stronger weapons and a higher health bar. One more thing, the clock landing at 2 A.M. eventually makes Jimmy pass out and loses some of his money including his items.

Graphics 8/10 - The backgrounds are well-done, even the daylight or night setting makes them look realistic. The motion-captured animations are also nice, including the smooth lip-synching. The models are sometimes realistic and sometimes cartoony (mostly the stereotypical nerds and jocks). It is pretty nice how Rockstar avoids to use more than one model (with the exception of pedestrians and cops) in the whole game. The models do looks like they are based on local people, since the antagonist, Gary Smith, looks exactly like my friend's brother though he isn't a sociopath...

However, the graphics are not amazing but they do look a bit better than San Andreas. The major bad things about the graphics is the blurry textures on a close-up view of the environment and character models. Also, like what everyone complains about, the framerate. The framerate is not always 100% smooth but it does run fine since there is alot of things going on-screen. Lastly, sometimes when your walking around, parts of the area don't render well but that doesn't happen all the time since the PS2 is aging.

Sound 10/10 - There's absolutely nothing bad about the sound. The music is extremely well-composed, making the catchy songs that are heavily influenced by Danny Elfman's style. The voice acting is great, and the portrayal of the characters are sweet, and mostly hilarious.

The sound effects from the weapons is good, like the screechy noises of bottle rockets and the stretching elastic band from the slingshot. Even the bike sounds and punching effects are a great addition too.

Replay Value 8/10 - There's only 6 chapters in the game, and it takes nearly a day to beat it. However, if you managed to beat the game, you can attempt to collect every rubber bands, take photos for yearbook, finding all Grottos & Gremlins cards and more to achieve various unlockable items.

The Bottom Line 9/10 - This is one of the best PS2 games available, and the price is worth it. Rockstar should make a sequel to the next-gen console. Heck, even a complete remake with more chapters and cliques would be sweet. I just don't get why this game is controversial, it doesn't feel like it's a anti-society game at all. Anyways, Bully is already No.1 on my top 5 PS2 games list.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/06