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KrepNatas's Bully (PS2)
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| [January 13, 2008 11:15:30 PM]
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Gameplay:
After playing a few more hours of Bully I am starting to get bored of it. While the dialog is well written and entertaining, the inflexibility of the missions doesn't fit well with the rest of the game. It may be that we've been spoiled for a while with games that let us make decisions about what type of actions we take. In Bully, each mission has a very limited solution set and doesn't seem to give you any options about whose side you want to take.
Rockstar did add a few touches to make the game feel more like a school and less like GTA, but mostly they are cosmetic changes. For instance, instead of picking up hookers to regain health, you give presents to girls to get a kiss. Also, instead of an assortment of high powered weapons you get bricks, firecrackers, smoke bombs, and trash can lids. Still, since nearly everything takes less than 20 minutes to complete Bully makes for an excellent casual game, and the minigames effectively break up the normal gameplay.
Design:
Bully is a well designed game, as it should be, since GTA3 was also a well designed game. The graphics fit very well with the atmosphere of the game, and there are lots of small touches that add atmosphere to the game as well. There were a large number of common models to complement the custom character models and gave the school a more realistic feel. Also, the non-unique chars had some basic behavior beyond just walking around, as well. When the bell rang you'd see most of them run off to class.
The biggest disappointment to the design of this game was its unoriginal play. It really feels like GTA3 with a different set of graphics on top of it. From a design point of view this likely saved a lot of time and it's not uncommon for a game engine to be reused, however, most of the time this is accompanied by enough changes or something creative enough to not leave it feeling like the game that first used the engine.
Another design choice that irked me in Bully is that they give the player very little personal choice during the game. I've seen, at most, two available missions at a time, and I had to complete both of them before another mission would become available. And each mission has a very straightforward goal and way of accomplishing it.
All in all, this is a fun game to play, and has some very entertaining cutscenes, but it's nothing new.
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| [January 12, 2008 05:18:53 PM]
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Summary:
Bully is a game in which you play a 'troubled' kid starting at a private school for children of rich parents who don't want to deal with their kids. The came consists mainly of running around and hitting other students while avoiding being caught by the prefects. The game is from Rockstar (think GTA).
Gameplay:
If you've played any of the GTA games in the past few years (San Andreas, Vice City, etc.) then you're already familiar with the gameplay. The main part of the game involves completing missions, of which there seems to be three main types. The first is protecting someone, the second is beating a certain person up, and the third is retrieving an object. These types of missions are fairly common and nothing new, and, just like in GTA, you fail if you're caught by an authority figure--prefect--at any point during the mission. While this is all old hat, it's still pretty fun.
Where the game really does well is in the minigames. There are numerous classes that you can attend (or skip) including math, english, art, gym, science, etc. Each class has its own minigame and doing well gives you a new ability. The minigames are both simple and enjoyable and are so far my favorite part of the game. Unfortunately, classes can sometimes be difficult to get to, as you aren't told where they'll be until the class starts, and they last for about 3.5 minutes and you have to find them. However, if you're lazy you can let a prefect catch you outside of class and he'll "bust" you and take you to class.
Something Rockstar brought back in this game is factions, however, each set of missions seems to increase for only a single faction and decrease another faction. I'm reminded of GTA2 which let you do missions for one of three factions to change how much each liked you, but you don't get to choose missions from different factions in Bully (at least not yet). Instead, you do a series of missions for one faction and then move on.
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KrepNatas's Bully (PS2)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Saturday 12 January, 2008
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