Rockstar is a game company with an envious library, storied history and incomparable number of accolades within the gaming world. Time and time again they've managed to wow the gaming world with their unique brand of quality production, biting satire and dry wit that never fails to charm and impress audiences. Throughout the years they managed to release hit after hit with their violent Manhunt and fun Grand Theft Auto games, and even proved themselves capable of telling emotional epics with the Red Dead games, L.A. Noire and Max Payne 3 (I love that game, I don't care what anyone else says.) Although, between all of those blockbusters was one game that, in comparison to the rest of their catalogue, can't help but seem a little out of place. Amidst the bevy of varied tails that ultimately all feature adults murdering each other, came out a game about teenagers and school. This game would go on to become something of cult classic, amassing countless fans and, I can only imagine, a ludicrous amount of requests for a sequel over the years. This game was: Bully.
In 2004, Rockstar had just finished with putting together what many consider to be one of their finest games of all time, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It was a kind of game like no other, pushing open world exploration to the scope within which it largely remains to this day and boasting a veritable who's-who of famous faces in the cast list. The folk at Rockstar had the chance to work with such legendary talent as: Samuel. L. Jackson, Chris Penn and Frank Vincent; and had the opportunity to delve into slightly more straight-faced issues as they realized parodies of the Crips vs Bloods and the L.A. Riots. Rockstar's signature goofy antics and over prevailing irreverence still shone through, but the whole product radiated with a different kind of calibre to their previous work. San Andreas had become a gaming cultural icon, even more so then their previous smash hits, and that wasn't something to be taken lightly. Sure, the cost of marketing the game had cost the company their relationship with the biggest gaming trade show of the time, E3, but they were bigger than E3 now, their work had crossed the cultural barrier into the mainstream. (Helped partially by the 'Jack Thompson's of the world.)
Fans old and new were enraptured with the studio and eager to see where they would go in the future, where would the criminal-chronicles of GTA take them to next? Rockstar, however, had a different idea about where to focus their efforts, and started work on a game that almost seemed like a parody of their own work. Instead of telling the story of hardened, cocaine-addled, gangsters in their own version of sun-bleached Miami; Rockstar's next game would shift focus to a reform school in New England. Their typical low-life protagonist would be replaced with a troubled youth on the road to expulsion, and instead of running various illicit money making enterprises, players would be running between classes to get an education. It was like Rockstar took the 'Bugsy Malone' approach to their own formula and came out with a game concept that was even more ludicrous then their usual offerings. Surely there was no way that this, inside joke of a game, would resonate with their fans in the same manner as their bread-and-butter, GTA. And yet, maybe it would amass a whole new type of fan.
As a youngling, Bully was one of my go-to games of the time, (partially because it was the only Rockstar game with a 'Teen' rating) and so I can attest to having raked up countless hundreds of hours with the original PS2 release. Not only that, but I even ended up bagging the Xbox 360 'Scholarship Edition' and the Wii version, (also 'Scholarship') and I have my eye on the PC version too. (Not sure why I haven't already got it, honestly.) So as you can likely deduce, I am a ready-made fan. With that in mind, I am perhaps in the perfect position to go over exactly what it was that made Bully such a special experience and why one should not miss out on this game, even though it is now 13 years old. (Wait. 13 Years!? Oh god- here comes the existential crisis...)
In basic setup, Bully is almost identical to any other GTA game of the 3D era. Players are introduced to the world of Bullworth through a selection of easy-to-forget busybody missions whilst finding themselves barred from the larger world in a move vaguely resembling 'narrative progression. (It wouldn't be until 'GTA: Episodes from Liberty City' that Rockstar got around to ditching that formula, and until GTA V to realize that a chapter's worth of tutorial missions is just a tad too much.) Yet despite this familiarity, the base game of Bully manages to stand out from other Rockstar titles due to two key factors; A. the way that they handle the School setting and B. the faction system. (I'm be talking about B first, because I'm so zany and unpredictable. Woo wee!)
Back in Grand Theft Auto 2, (You know, before the games were 3D) Rockstar toyed with a revolutionary faction system to define mission structure and help flesh-out the retrofuturistic world of 'Anywhere, USA'. (Clearly your 'ideas' guy deserves a raise.) Bully expanded upon that rudimentary faction system into something that colours the entire game and guides the narrative. The whole game revolves around being an out-of-place kid in a school full of cliques; by performing quests and tasks for folk, Jimmy can help to befriend factions that would otherwise kick his face in without a second look. Really work on these groups and you'll be able to call upon the aid of the scrawny Nerds to go up against the jacked Jocks. (Not the most even match-up in hindsight.) This simple mechanic helped differentiate Bully from any other Open world game of the age, as players would find that their possible interactions with the world would dynamically change as the story progressed. This helped instill a real sense of consequence that was somewhat missing from earlier GTA titles. (Consequently, Bully is one of the very few open world Rockstar titles that I continued to play after the credits.)
Bullworth Academy is a very different kettle of fish to other Rockstar worlds, as it is one that runs on strict rules with even stricter punishments. Protagonist Jimmy is expected to attend class, get home before curfew, stay out of the girls dormitories, oh, and try not to beat other students to a bloody pulp on no provocation. Failure to heed these rules did not end in being chased by police (Unless you commit said crimes outside the School in later chapters) but rather being hunted by prefects who, in a shocking show of power, are apparently completely allowed to face slam you to the floor for bumping into a child. (It's not excessive force if they don't have a badge!) Being a student myself when I first played this game, I certainly related with the rigid structure of school life (albeit, without all the constant rule-breaking) and found myself compelled to immerse into Jimmy's world. Something that would take an active effort on my part for any of the GTA games.
Together these factors laid the groundwork for a truly different type of Rockstar game, whilst still ultimately familiar. It was like jumping into a brand new book series after you'd watched the Netflix adaptation, people knew the basics but there was so much more to comb through. For my part, I loved the light 'RPG' mechanics in the game wherein Jimmy Hopkins can improve his skills by attending class or hunting down specific collectibles. It truly helped to paint the feeling of gameplay progression as you steadily became able to fight with more elaborate combos or craft more prank tools at your chemistry set. Somehow this felt more meaningful then gathering a cadre of guns and properties, you were actually working on bettering yourself. (Wow, that sounded cheesy.)
The main cast of Bully are much what you would expect from a Rockstar game. You've got your no-nonsense bad apple protagonist, Jimmy, (I guess there's some 'good' in there somewhere if we're being liberal with our use of that word) the dirt-eating guide character who is so ready to betray you for no real reason that it's not even funny, Gary (Who I swear to god is a younger Ocelot from 'Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater') and a whole cast of colourful side characters to propel your character along. That last group are really the one's who shine in the game, as Rockstar found a way to make them mostly unique and memorable whilst still revolving around the typical school archetypes of Nerds, Bullies, Preppies, Greaser, Jocks and Townies.
From a narrative perspective, there is nothing particularly special about Bully beyond the way that it manages to take an atypical Rockstar 'Revenge'/'Take over the city' plot and transpose it to the world of school life. You'll find the odd moments and character motivations that spring out of nowhere, but the heart of the story still shines through and nothing is truly awfully written, in fact, I'm not sure whether or not the Housers are even capable of truly bad writing. Critiques aside, the journey of Jimmy is simple and fun enough for me to have replayed it several times, and I particularly like how climatic the final chapter gets. (Call it average, all and all.)
Bullworth Academy and Town are some of the real stars of the show as, for the first time that I can remember, we got to see the world builders at Rockstar put all of their talent into bringing to life a relatively small world space. (Especially when compared to their last open world; the entirety of San Andreas.) What results is a world space that is full of variety, charm and detail in it's every crack that I could give a semi-reliable tour of the place even now. (I often argue that a memorable game world is a darn good one.) You have the sprawling grounds of the Academy to roam, the high streets in town, the Fun Fair by the cape, the trashy residentals on the second landmass, the trailer park on the third, the Asylum and the industrial district. All of these distinct areas are memorable and feature at least one cool mission on their premises (with an exception to the trailer park, for which I cannot recall a single mission.) There were fighting missions, tailing missions, chasing mission, mini-game missions, and even one significant stealth/infiltration mission. (There's a game after my own heart!)
When presented with the query: What made Bully so special? I think that the answer would have to be the extent to which the setting, world and characters were oh, so relateable. Previous Rockstar games have been set all over America and parodied all walks of life, every one of them recognizable but not all of them familiar, especially not for a non-American. Los Santos' Vinewood would resonate a lot more with LA locals than a Londoner and Miami residents probably got a bigger kick out of Vice City than anyone else. Although they were both undeniably great games, something about that disconnect made it just that little bit harder to absorb oneself into the world. Bully managed to overcome that drawback with it's rural 'anytown' setting, everyday school aesthetic; and, even though the typical 'media blogger' may draw issue from it, the humorous stereotypical residents. Bully did just enough to differentiate itself from Grand Theft Auto in a positive way, whilst still retaining all the things that we love about those games. Just writing this blog had made me incredibly nostalgic for the old game, likely due to that unshakable droning theme which I've now got stuck in your head as well as my own. Too bad that, if rumors out of Rockstar are to be believed, all plans on a potential sequel have been dead in the water for several years now. But we never know what the future might hold for the quaint town of Bullworth...
No comments:
Post a Comment