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Almost a year ago I decided to join the RebelFM guys in playing through Rockstar's boarding school sandbox game Bully (PS2 version). I lasted 3 play sessions over the course of a week before life got in the way. Around the same time, I started writing a "game diary," which would give me practice writing about and critiquing games and gameplay systems, in addition to gaining insight into how and why I play.
Starting tomorrow, I will (finally) return to Bully, with the intention of playing 3 or 4 times a week until I finish. I will post any new entries I make in my game diary (for Bully, anyway) as I write them. Below are the first two entries for Bully, edited for grammar and punctuation but otherwise unchanged.
Bully — impressions so far 23/3/09
Still early in chapter 2, I have already seen much of the game world. It appears that completing chapter 1 opens the school gates so that you can explore the town (and skip school more easily). This feels very much like the right thing for the game, as I was beginning to get bored with the school surroundings. It is remarkable how well Rockstar managed to adapt the Grand Theft Auto 3 style and design philosophy to a game about a teenager in boarding school.
Today's highlight would have to be the trip to the carnival that I inadvertently made. While I doubt the mini-games will stay with me for long, or have much replay value, I felt something special about the subtle mocking that seemed to be going on. Especially interesting was the freak show containing the conjoined twin sisters, a 'skeleton' of an old man (still alive), and a fat woman with a beard, who sat munching on doritos and potato chips while complaining about some apparently generic daytime television show. Each of the 'freaks' was sealed behind a glass wall, where they could insult gawking passers-by and present caricatures of themselves for the good of their livelihood — one of them even comments on the security presented to him by joining the circus.
I am yet to discover if it is possible to beat up a prefect, as I have only managed a few hits at a time before getting apprehended or having to run away. I think I might be playing as something of a sociopath — I keep being nice to half the people I come across from each clique, and picking fights with the other half. It will be interesting to see how this behaviour pans out — currently I have high respect from nerds and bullies, and am well-liked by the nerds, while the shop guys have stopped attacking me on sight, and no-one is listed in the stats as hating me.
Another session down — 29/3/09
Today's play saw references to — and mockery of — several well-known games and gaming conventions. And not just fetch quests or mercenary work (which were also present). Today I got to play Paperboy. True to form, I managed to assault a couple of pedestrians and break a car window (which caused the driver to chase me aggressively) in the process of delivering seven newspapers to nearby letterboxes via the 'throw from a moving bicycle' technique pioneered by the classic game. There was also what appeared to be a tribute to Punch Out! in a boxing competition that won me a "crummy" old beach house. It was at this beach house that I got the third of my surprise video game references, with a stripped down rip-off of Wipeout, the classic futuristic racer. This game had the same difficult steering and techno-futuristic art style as the real thing, as well as arrows on the track, speed boosts, shortcuts and weapons. It is exactly what you would expect a Wipeout prototype to be like. And completing the reference was an advertisement for a future version of the game with the year 3258 (or thereabouts, I think) thrown on the end of the name, as was done with Wipeout 2097.
My current task seems to be dealing with my new found popularity and infiltrating the preppies despite coming from a poor family.
The most comical moment for me so far would have to go to the time I found a shipwreck in the middle of nowhere, climbed to the highest accessible point of the ship, and passed out from exhaustion. I awoke to find that I had been robbed in my sleep, and the thief had taken my shoes — a nice pair of black skate shoes which I had just bought the day before.
This drew a resounding 'what the f***!?' from me, as I pondered what anyone would be doing swimming out to the middle of a river — in the dark, late at night, and miles away from civilisation — just so they can steal some kid's shoes. Yet — testament to how f***ed up Rockstar make their games — this did nothing to break my suspension of disbelief. I just thought, "man, what are the odds that some mother f***er would climb all the way up here to steal my shoes? And worst of all, they just leave me here hanging precipitously over the edge of this wooden piece of junk a good twenty metres above the river's surface, so I would surely drown if I fell — especially since I was passed out. What a f***ing prick."
I also discovered that you can sneak into the carnival without paying if you jump over the gate on a bike — only problem was I landed on someone and got arrested for assault.
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