Game: Bully (PS2) and a Rockstar Retrospective

First off, $40 is not a bad price to spend for a brand new game. I happened to stalk it run across it at Target. Not sure if it was on sale or not; I snatched it up simply because I am an opportunist.

I have played many, many Rockstar games over the years. I played Grand Theft Auto back in 1998, when it was still 2D, having scored a pirate version in a Singapore tech mall for $5. That was not a good thing. I was turned off to the notion of playing a silly 2D maze game on a laptop. The subject matter was interesting, but it just wasn't that good, really. Grand Theft Auto probably wasn't that intriguing to me because I grew up in the ghetto. The notion of stealing cars and (later) beating up hookers just seemed stereotypical and tired to me. This spoiled my expectations of every release of GTA that followed for several years to come.

In 2000, Bungie released a game called Oni. Inspired by Ghost in the Shell, Oni was a mesmerizing 3rd person shooter that played like a fine piece of anime film and kept me up late for days. I remember seeing the Rockstar logo on the loading credits of the game. Okay, so maybe they deserved a second chance? It was the beginning of a long love affair with their products.

These are the Rockstar games I've played (in somewhat chronological order) and how I rate them:

• GTA - 4/10. Frustrating, ugly, pixelated 2D mess. This game stressed me out and turned me off to the entire series.
  
  
• ONI - 9/10. The only improvement they could have made with this game was to make it multi-player. This was one of the first games to truly entrance me. Now I'm like a junkie, always looking to match that initial fix to satisfy my addiction. This game was before its time. It illustrated what could be done when you merged great cinematography with excellent gameplay. To this day, few games ever reach this level of synergy.
  
  
• Midnight Club: Street Racing - 8/10. Not bad, for a first generation console racing game. Unfortunately, the difficulty level ramped up a bit too fast for me to really get into it, but I chalked it up to my own old age, rather than a flaw in the game. This was one of the first games to showcase street racing and an LA car culture sensibility. Many have imitated it since, but most have humorously failed--think SRS (Street Racing Syndicate), with its semi-pornographic, stripper cutscenes.
  
  
• GTA II - Not memorable. I remember picking this game up and hardly playing it at all. It seemed like just more of the same, stressful nonsense I had played last time, only with better graphics. Okay, so maybe I didn't give it a chance.
  

• GTA III - 9/10. Impressive, but beating up hookers and beating down gangsters with baseball bats left a lot to be desired. Still, the gameplay was a masterpiece.
  

• State of Emergency - 6/10. This felt like GTA, only more clumsy. I never got into it, though I was starting to appreciate the free-roaming elements and I distinctly remember enjoying the run and gun gameplay.

• Midnight Club II - 9/10. This really showed what the PS2 could do. Nothing could compete with this for sheer fun arcade racing ... until Need For Speed Underground, that is.
  

• Manhunt - 10/10. This is truly a masterpiece. I nearly went insane playing this in the dark. And though I could never get into beating up hookers with a baseball bat in GTA, I sure as hell did enjoy beheading racists in a junkyard with the razor wire. Who knew?

• GTA: San Andreas - 8/10. Okay, so this is a great game. Unfortunately, the racial stereotypes really started to grate on me. It became entirely evident that this was a game for which I was not the intended audience (being an educated minority male). Although I was not offended by it (and in retrospect maybe I should have been), it did make me oddly feel like an outsider. I mean, for the first time in a game, I had the opportunity to play a minority character, but at the same time I was being asked to play as if I were a white teenage male who was playing a minority character. Mindblowing.
  

• The Warriors - 6/10. Adventure Fighting. Excellent movie tie-in, but the fighting was a bit cludgy, and it got really repetitive way too soon. The marketing budget for this game could have probably paid to send every gang member in the country to college on a 4 year scholarship. Ultimately, I was disappointed.
  
  
• Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition Remix - 9/10. Arcade Racing. Fun beyond belief, but it did get a bit too challenging after a while. The soundtrack to this game is astonishing, but even it has limitations when it's trying to be everything to everybody. From Techno to Reggae, Hip-Hop to Punk Rock, this game has a little bit of everything and not enough of anything. Nevertheless, when I picked this up, I had no clue I would lose a month of my life.

And finally, we come to Bully, Rockstar's latest release, which has gotten a ton of bad press even prior to production. It was partially the bad press which has led me to buy this game, in fact.

I do not believe in censorship. Period. I especially don't believe in calls to ban a game before it has been played. My decision to buy this game brand new is almost entirely inspired by my desire to spite those same folks who would like to ban games, or blame any and all of society's ills on gaming. Not only do I find that mindset offensive, but I find it threatening to the fabric of our national identity.

So long as this is a free country, my intention is to give an unbiased opinion of the game based only on my experience with it, having played it through a couple of sittings. Because $40 may not be much money to most people, but it is to me, and I know most teens don't want to spend that money on a game that sucks.

Disclaimer: I haven't played through the entire game. Nor have I ever felt a decent review required a total walk through of a game. In general, you can tell within the first 5 hours if you will enjoy a game or not.

To put it bluntly, this game is good. It is definitely worth the money. I have only gotten through 10% of the game after 5 hours of playing. That translates to high replay value. Graphics are decent (not stunning), precisely what is to be expected from a PS2 title. Controls are nice, though not customizable. Fighting and skateboarding seem fairly intuitive, but I would have liked the ability to change my button configurations. That's just a basic expectation of a game these days, as far as I'm concerned.

Perhaps the strongest part of Bully is the incredible storyline. There are plenty of missions here, but you are always brought back to the schedule of attending classes (with plenty of time for mischief in between).

Unfortunately, there are a few negatives to consider:

1. Load Times - The game has to load every time you enter or leave a building. And the load times are horrendous. This is compounded by being on a PS2. Sad. Load Times (for a perfect game score from Propaganda Sifter) need to be minimal!
   
2. Some funky camera - Rockstar is great at giving us the free-range camera. Unfortunately, there are some minor issues with it this time around. There were several times when the camera became a nuisance in the midst of trying to run away from danger. One moment I'm behind the character, and the next I'm in front of him looking backwards. This, of course, is disastrous to a review score by this Propaganda Sifter.
3. Repetition - Okay, so 5 hours isn't a lot of time to invest into a game, but there are already elements of tedium starting to rise up in the gameplay. When a game becomes too much like a job, it ceases to be fun. This is the main reason why I hate The Sims series. But for people who are into micromanagement and resource re-allocation, this might be entirely their cup of tea.
4. Sub-par Art Design - Okay, so I'm supposed to believe this kid is 15 years old, right? So why does he look like he's 12? At one point, the Principal raises his hand and the poly count is so dreadful that it looks like he's wearing mittens!
   
5. Deja-Vu - Okay, so it's more of a pet-peeve than an actual flaw in the game. But at some point--if you are out of high school, that is--you will most likely start to feel disturbed by this game. There are moments that will seem familiar and maybe even a little uncomfortable.
   

Bully is an exercise in being able to replay your high school years, only this time it's more treacherous. If you are still in high school, you probably won't enjoy this game. The ethical and moral dilemmas the main character has to endure are ultimately more satisfying if you've had to make these decisions in the real world. Congratulations to Rockstar for giving us a game that lets us be who we want to be. If we want to be thugs, we have that choice. If we want to be nerdy, we can pursue that as well. The choice is up to us. And frankly, I'm glad I live in a country where I still have a choice to make those decisions. Ultimately, This might be a good game for teenagers to play. They have a chance to see the outcome of their own decisions, be they ethical or unethical, before they make them.

One thing is certain: this game is tame, compared to some of the other fare Rockstar has produced. Maybe it's time to lay off them and let them do what they do best? Because I'd really enjoy the chance to live out my fantasies of becoming a crooked politician, for once. I have a feeling Rockstar could pull it off, if anyone could.

Sifted: 8/10