There's a long-standing myth that suggests high school is the best time of your life. You know, football games, school plays, Homecoming dances. Anyone hearing that Hallmark depiction might idealize high school as a regrettably brief series of luminous golden years where all of your best memories are made. Ha! In my book, anyone found spreading that humbug should be boiled in his own pudding.

Everyone knows high school is nothing more than a hormone-fueled game of Survival of the Fittest and Rockstar's new 3rd person action/adventure title "Bully" tells it like it is, offering us an insightful and amusingly fresh context for a now-familiar brand of gameplay.

You play 15-year-old Jimmy Hopkins, a boy like many others whose woefully self-involved parents have disposed of him at a snooty boarding school. This sucks big time because the second you set foot on campus, everyone—the jocks, the greasers, the preppies—even the bookworms want to kick your ass. The only people who’ll give you the time of day are two misfit dorm-mates; a mousy loner and an embittered sociopath with delusions of grandeur. You’re a smart, tough kid though and you figure right quick that if you want to win friends and influence people you either better start doing favors for them or kicking their asses.

A relatively non-linear gameplay format will be familiar to fans of the GTA games; one that allows you the freedom to follow the main storyline or ignore it in favor of pursuing less critical goals. Your status at school is determined by the amount of grunt work you do for any given gang, however your alliances do become more or less predetermined if you follow the critical path. The good news is, that linearity isn't necessarily a bad thing. Accomplishing the entertaining series of creative critical path objectives is its own reward. I mean, who wouldn't enjoy breaking into a girl’s dorm, talking smack to the school football mascot or pounding a smug Bill Gates-ish geek with his own potato gun? There's plenty to keep you busy between classes.

Speaking of the curriculum, at Bullworth there are two classes per day; a rotation among English, Chemistry, Art, Photography, Shop and Gym. Taking classes in a game sounds about as exciting as watching paint dry but in Bully you’ll enjoy it because unlike in real life, school done Rockstar-style is actually fun. Each class has its own word, rhythm or arcade-brand minigame you have to complete successfully in order to pass, some more challenging than others. It’s worth doing well in these classes because a high grade point average in Bully means fun new gear--not to mention new combat moves you might be needing next time you get ambushed by a gaggle of greasers. Still not convinced? Fine. Skip school then! See if I care! Oh and while you're at it, could you go to the nearby town of Bullworth Vale and steal me some smokes?

Bullworth Vale is the center of commerce in Bully and if you can avoid the cops you can hit the shops and score yourself a schweet racing bike, a cool pair of army boots or a killer new tattoo. If you're low on greenbacks you might terrorize the townspeople on your skateboard, chill at the nearest gang hideout, pester an ex-Green Beret hobo for tips on hand-to-hand combat or hang out at the carnival with the sideshow freaks. If that all sounds like a drag, try egging every window or tagging every wall in town.

Sound destructive, naughty, downright antisocial? Well...yeah. But before every parent in the vicinity gets their shorts in a bunch, let me clarify that in spite of your high-spirited hijinks, in Bully you play way less often as a vandal and way more often as a defender of the meek. Sure, you get into some mischief now and then but you also go out of your way to stand up for the little guy and besides, the trouble you cause tends to be of the PG-13 rather than the R-rated variety.

The controls in Bully will be familiar to fans of any action-adventure title and are transparent enough to serve the context and fiction well; left analog stick to move, right analog stick to look around. Combat is easy and fun, consisting mainly of basic melee attacks and grapples interspersed with a handful of easily performed context-sensitive combos. Weapons and inventory items are easily accessible; by pressing the right and left triggers, items are swapped out and auto-equipped (which can be very useful when eluding pissed-off prefects). Camera angles and mission objectives are accessed with the directional pad and ranged weapons are fired (predictably) using the right trigger.

Rockstar's created a reputation for making game worlds that are rich and alive and Bully lives up to that legacy. Day turns to night; seasons change; students pound each other; bums nap in alleyways, people point and laugh if you wear a stupid sweater. The development team displays an impressive attention to detail and it shows especially in the care taken with incidental NPC dialog. In fact for my money, some of the best entertainment in the game can be had just passing by NPC's. I can't be the only one who gets a laugh out of an NPC walking by muttering "The cheese is IN the hot dog!" –right?

Unlike the GTA games, Bully's sound is more like a film score than a music video and complements the less-flashy character of the title. Music and sound effects are satisfying, and everything from pedophile gym teachers to mannish lunch-ladies are acted believably and well.

All these facets of the game are great but at the end of the year, does Bully make the grade? Well while the game certainly gets high marks for sound, art direction, controls and gameplay it could use a summer makeup course in Camera Placement. Combat in close quarters against multiple enemies can be frustrating because the camera often rapidly and repeatedly changes point of view making targeting difficult. And here's hoping Rockstar's team gets a private tutor for the core subject of Load Times. The team's abilities in creating a big seamless sandbox deserve a gold star, but the load times endured when going in and out of buildings or reloading missions feel considerably longer than they should be. Come on guys, get it together. We don't want to have to hold you back a year.

Many of us have enjoyed the GTA games but to me, Bully's better than those. Maybe it's the fresh context for a familiar gameplay format or maybe it's because I'm nostalgic and it reminds me of both the hilarity and the anguish of my high school days. Most likely it's simply because it's a quality game. It has all the fun and entertaining aspects of previous Rockstar offerings but is kinder, more accessible and hearkens back to the days when kids carried slingshots instead of handguns. In spite of this, critics who know nothing more about the game than its title have already warned that Bully teaches kids a negative lesson. Perhaps it teaches something, but if so then that lesson doesn't appear to be the one suggested by the censors. I mean in games as in life, doesn’t everyone have the choice whether or not to play by the rules?

Rating:
Our Scoring System