So yesterday I stopped buy my local WalMart and picked up the much anticipated Bully from the rockstar game development company, Rockstar.

As everyone knows, this game has sparked much controversy during the last year. Leading some to go so far as to label the game a ‘Columbine Simulator’. However, since Jack Thompson was the person who coined this term, you can bet it’s a fairly good chance that it’s an extreme misrepresentation.

In fact, now that I own Bully, and have spent a decent number of hours playing it (I’m already to chapter 2!) I can say with no issue that this game is exactly the opposite. At most Bully offers a solid storyline with a very interesting approach to the open world theme that will bring some people back to early elementary school. I type elemenary, because it’s possibly the only time period in which any of the violent content in this game would’ve happened at this level in real life (who gives indian burns anymore?)

In fact, I’d propose that this game sends exactly the opposite message to the one suggested by Thompson: if you do something bad, there will be a consequence, and going around hurting people is not ok. The game is fairly childish in many of it’s elements, ranging from the dialog (with the exception of some of the ‘sexual themes’) to the fact that you drink soda for more energy and complete puzzle games to get marks in school. Not only that, but going to school, getting to class on time, and obeying your curfew help you out so much during the game that I find myself running to class when I hear the bell, and I’m constantly watching my dashboard clock.

As for the violence? The game features no blood. Aside from that, you get detension for being mean or hurting girls, or messing with authority. However, as in real life, violence does indeed occur in this game. The only problem is that it’s about as tame as your average captain planet cartoon, with the sole exception that you can’t change the channel quite as easily. When you hurt another kid, they grow weaker and weaker, and once you knock them to the ground they literally lay there holding their knee like a whiny little child who’s fallen off his scooter. Once your opponent has been downed, gta style repetition beating completely loses it’s power. There is no fun in it, as it no longer effects the fallen adversary. This very simple gameplay decision means that once you knock somebody down, and the ‘battle’ music stops, you find yourself moving on to complete other missions as opposed to sitting there waiting for their corpse to disappear.

Though battle system is very feature complete, the majority of the things you come across in the game are destructable. Because of this I find myself attacking tvs and and chairs more than fighting with other students.

In stark contrast to other free roam style games, there are some really unique weapons to collect. Such as a bag of marbles that can be thrown under the feet of your foes that will trip them up in a very slapstick manner. The firecracker is the only weapon that seems very out of place in the game, what with it sharing an inventory with stink bombs and all. This says volumes about how toned down the violence in the game is. Something as minimal as a firecracker actually feels out of place in a game of pranks. The reason the firecracker feels out of place is the level of impact the explosion has on something when it makes contact. There isn’t a huge thrush of gore and bones flying about, but it does knock the it’s target down (about as hard as when you push them down), and it makes a load boom. Personally I blame the boom.

At any rate, out of 10, I’d probably give the game something slightly higher than a 9. It’d get more, but as with every topic, I have some complaining to do.

The skateboard is really cool, and doing 360s down some of the gaps in the game is extremely entertaining, and the physics are pretty accurate. However, I don’t like the fact that controlling the skateboard is so unwieldy, and I don’t like the weird collision float up the stairs thing that happens when you’re not able to ollie up the stairs. It also would’ve been nice to have some other tricks to mess around with, but maybe those are unlockable later in the game?

Another thing that sort of annoys me is picking locks. At first I thought you were supposed to follow the arrows back and forth until you line up the tumblers, but after the first few lockers I broke into, I’ve sort of put the arrows down to randomness, and have resorted to quickly spinning the thumbstick in one direction until the lock pops open.

The dialog in the game is good, and the AI seems almost spot on, but I do think the number of times I hear the same thing over and over again is starting to piss me off. When you can walk up to a girl, and hear one of 2 sentences out of 20 continuous interactions, something is wrong. The characters do seem to have a varied number of sentences they can run through, but they always seem to use a specific few.

Also, I can’t figure out the freaking shop class. It shows a picture of a thumbstick and has a giant L inside it with an arrow pointing right, but every time I spin the thumbstick either direction I spin the peddles on the bike and somehow fail. I have no idea what’s supposed to happen, but I’ve only been to that class like twice.

All in all, I think the moral of this story is simple: DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY IT’S COVER. The game teaches a very solid lesson, and will also keep punk kids off of the streets so I don’t have the chance to accidently run them over on purpose. Yeah, I know what I typed. Jack Thompson and friends need to move on to something far more contructive, like watching their own kids and doing a bit of real parenting. I think it’s been made pretty clear in recent years that FUD peddling doesn’t solve anything. You monitor your kids and I’ll monitor mine. I certainly don’t need a team effort trying to save my children from the real world while crap like Barney remains to project the idea that it’s ok to hang around with giant purple dinosaurs who will think nothing of molesting and eating them.