Bully, also known as Canis Canem Edit in the PAL region, is a third person action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar Vancouver for the PlayStation 2 on October 17, 2006 in the United States, and October 25, 2006 in the United Kingdom. An Xbox version was originally in development but was cancelled for undisclosed reasons. The game was re-released with enhanced graphics, new features and characters as Bully: Scholarship Edition on March 4, 2008 for the Wii and Xbox 360 and October 24, 2008 on the PC. The PlayStation 2 version of the game is also available in the United States as a special edition that includes a limited edition comic book and a dodgeball of the same style as the ones used in the game, with the word Bully embossed on it.
On December 18, 2012, Bully has been re-released on the PS2 Classics for the PlayStation 3 in the PlayStation Store and as of March 22, 2016, was later released as a downloadable enhanced PlayStation 2 classics version for the PlayStation 4 via PlayStation Network, with enhanced framerate and graphic resolution. An updated version of the Scholarship Edition, titled Anniversary Edition, was developed by War Drum Studios and was released for Android and iOS on 8 December 2016.
Gameplay
Bully is an open world sandbox action-adventure game set in a school environment. The player takes control of a 15 year old teenage rebel James "Jimmy" Hopkins, who from the opening cutscene is revealed to be a difficult student with a turbulent background. The game concerns the events that follow Jimmy being dropped off at Bullworth Academy, a fictional boarding school in New England. The player is free to explore the school campus and town, or to complete the main missions. The game makes extensive use of minigames. Some are used to earn money, others to improve Jimmy's abilities.
School classes themselves are done in the form of minigames, broken into five levels of increasing difficulty. English, for example, is a word scramble minigame, and as Jimmy completes the level, he learns to apologize to bullies, deliver better taunts, apologize to Prefects and finally to apologize to the police.
Jimmy has a multitude of weapons available, although they tend to run along the lines of things a school boy might actually attain, such as slingshots, bags of marbles, stink bombs, and later in the game, a bottle rocket launcher and a spud cannon. He also has an assortment of vehicles to operate — mainly bicycles with different abilities, but also a moped, a go-kart, a skateboard and on rare occasions, a lawn mower.
Setting
The game takes place at Bullworth Academy, a fictional independent boarding school in the New England area of the United States. Jimmy ends up enrolled in the school when his newly married mother and fifth stepfather go on a year-long honeymoon cruise. The school is located in the also fictional town of Bullworth, which resembles Connecticut (this would also explain the high prevalence of 'Old money' and 'Nouveau Riche' influences). The school itself is a classical neo-gothic design and is similar to many other public schools and colleges in the United Kingdom and New England, in particular Fettes College in Edinburgh.
Time
The timeline of the game is vastly unclear. The developers deliberately included influences of various periods of time to make the game more inclusive and less of a period piece. Cars and architecture feature design influences going back to the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s but there are also other objects hinting at a setting sometime in the 2000s.
- Future Street Race 2165, an arcade video game found in the Boys' Dorm, displays the year 1995.
- School sports flags show the school as champions as recently as 1998-1999.
- A poster can be seen in the Jock Clubhouse that dates to 2005, and another to 2007.
- The year 2007 can be seen on notices on the wall of the Boys' Dorm.
- Mr Galloway alludes to surfing "dubious sites" on the internet. Additionally, two desktop computers that resemble computers seen in the 1990's and early 2000's can be found in the basement bedroom of Dragon's Wing Comics.
- In contrast to the above, the School Library has a number of computers that closely resemble the early 1980s Commodore Educator 64.[1]
- On the game's now-defunct website, an introduction written by Miss Danvers welcomed students to the "2006 term" at Bullworth Academy. There were other allusions to 2006 on the website. However, because there are numerous contradictions between the website and the game itself, this cannot be taken as proof that Bully took place in 2006 and 2007.
Because of the contradicting factors, it is quite impossible to pin the game as taking place in a specific era. This was specifically intended by the developers, who wanted to create a timeless atmosphere to allow players to relate the game with their own days in school.[2]
Grand Theft Auto connections
Bullworth Academy was featured on the Grand Theft Auto IV television show "I'm Rich." This lead to debate amongst fans as to whether this evinced that Bullworth existed within the GTA universe, or whether it was a work of fiction-within-fiction.
Plot summary
- Chapter 1: Making New Friends and Enemies: Jimmy comes to Bullworth Academy and immediately runs into trouble with the Bullies.
- Chapter 2: Rich Kid Blues: Jimmy is now more popular, but he must deal with the spoiled Preppies.
- Chapter 3: Love Makes the World Go Around: Jimmy gets mixed in with the love affairs of Johnny Vincent, leader of the Greasers, and his girlfriend Lola Lombardi.
- Chapter 4: A Healthy Mind is a Healthy Body and Other Lies: Jimmy decides to take on the Jocks, but he first needs to convince the Nerds to help him.
- Chapter 5: The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hopkins, Aged 15: Jimmy, after briefly enjoying his power as king of Bullworth Academy, is expelled. He has to clear his name and get re-enrolled back into the Academy while regaining control of the cliques.
- Chapter 6: Endless Summer: Jimmy can tie up any loose ends, such as finishing races, finding collectibles, etc.
Characters
- See Characters
The game focuses on Bullworth's newest student, Jimmy Hopkins. As he advances through his academic career at Bullworth Academy, he may interact with the school's students and teachers, as well as people from the neighboring districts, many of whom will give him errands to complete. He is greeted by Gary Smith, a scheming, unstable sociopath and Pete Kowalski, a shy student who has yet to make any friends. Jimmy has to navigate his way through the five cliques at the school — the Bullies, Nerds, Preppies, Greasers and Jocks — as well as the Townie kids, the school faculty and all the other adult townsfolk. Unlike other games from Rockstar, no two characters in Bully are the same, and every character has their own name, personality, and appearance.
Artwork of Bully, the main antagonist, Gary (right), and the main protagonist, Jimmy (left).
Most of the voice actors of the teenagers and kids were in their late teens and early twenties to make the game's dialogue feel as realistic as possible.
Voice Acting
The game's voice cast are made mostly of 'off-the-street' actors and actresses, some of which had prior roles in other Rockstar titles like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, or credits in television programmes. Some of them went on to take on other acting roles, while Bully remains the only role for others.
Major Cast:
| Character: | Voice Actor: |
|---|---|
| Jimmy Hopkins | Gerry Rosenthal |
| Gary Smith | Peter Vack |
| Pete Kowalski | Matt Bush |
| Dr. Crabblesnitch | Ralph Gunderman |
| Russell Northrop | Cody Melton |
| Zoe Taylor |
Development
Bully possibly started development around 2003 by Rockstar Vancouver when they were known as Barking Dog Studios. When they were purchased by Rockstar Games, development stepped up further. Many very low quality beta models of characters can be found within the game files from a very early version of the game. Early information released by Take-Two Interactive seemed to indicate that the player would be taking the role of a bully, and screenshots printed in Electronic Gaming Monthly showed the player-controlled antagonist administering a swirlie and throwing a punch at another student. The game uses an advanced Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas engine through Renderware. Rockstar Vancouver also decided to make every student in the school have a unique appearance and, within programming limitations, personality. While many features had been completely new, there are a considerable amount of content and features recycled from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas such as certain game mechanics, some in-game models including cars, sounds and a few other miscellaneous details.
Controversy
Reception
| Publication | Score | |
|---|---|---|
| IGN | 8.9 out of 10 | |
| VG Resource Center | 8.75 out of 10 | |
| Gamesmaster | 90% | |
| GameSpot | 8.7 out of 10 | |
| Gamestyle | 7 out of 10 | |
| 1UP | 10 out of 10 | |
| Review compilations | ||
| Game Rankings | 87% (based on 87 reviews) | |
| GameStats | 8.8 out of 10 (based on 34 reviews) | |
| Metacritic | 87 out of 100 | |
| Metacritic (User Score) | 9.1 out of 10 (based on 200 reviews) | |
Bully has received generally positive reviews from critics. The game received ratings of 8.9/10 from IGN, 9.0/10 from Games Radar, a perfect 10/10 from 1UP.com, 8.7/10 from GameSpot, 5/5 from JIVE Magazine, 8.75/10 from VGRC.net, a 5/5 from X-Play, and made the Top 10 Games of '06 in PlayStation Magazine. Canis Canem Edit also got 9/10 from OPS2 Magazine. Critics generally praised the game's storyline, while they complained about particular stealth missions, as well as the camera. Critics also noted that the game is substantially easier than veterans of the Grand Theft Auto series (Rockstar's flagship titles) would expect.
Awards
- Won IGN's award for Best PlayStation 2 Action Game.
- Won GameSpot's award for Best Original Music.
- Finalist for GameSpot's Game of the Year 2006
- Gaming Target - 52 Games We'll Still Be Playing From 2006 selection
- Came in top ten of best PlayStation 2 game of the year.
- Became number #43 in the top 100 games of all time in IGN.
Reception
Both versions of the game generally received positive reviews with IGN giving the Wii version an 8/10, while the Xbox 360 version received 8.7/10. 1up.com gave the Wii version an A grade.
The Xbox 360 version of Bully: Scholarship Edition was found to be unstable on some players' consoles, resulting in glitches, crashes and performance issues. Rockstar have promised to have a patch addressing these issues by the week of March 10, 2008. On Thursday March 20th, a patch was released via Xbox Live, but some initial reports claim to have continued or worsened problems. GameSpot, a game review website which bases its reviews on the initial public release, took the glitches into account and marked the 360 version of the Scholarship Edition down to a 7/10, a full point lower than the Wii version, which received an 8.
Gallery
Soundtrack
Sequel
- Main article: Bully 2
- While not yet confirmed, there have been many hints made by Rockstar Games that a sequel would be released. Dan Houser said in 2012 that after Max Payne 3, Bully 2 was a possibility. In July 2013, Rockstar Games filed trademark renewals for the franchise sparking more rumors of the development to the game.
See also
References
External links
- Official Bully Homepage
- Official Canis Canem Edit Homepage
- Press Release by Take Two Interactive
- Website with videos of missions in Bully and Bully: SE
- BBC News article about the controversy
- Youth Council of Ireland wants boycott of “shocking" game
- Information about the Bully Soundtrack album, composed by Shawn Lee
- Voices and Choices: A Conversation with Shawn Lee