In a sense, they were doomed by their own success: they wanted to present the picture of a stiff, repressive boarding school that didn’t let you have fun, and that’s what I got out of it. Now, if you’re like the main character in Bully, a hellion who is going to seek out ways to have fun and cause trouble, then I’m sure you could find it. I’ve got very limited time to play games and a huge pile of them I want to get through, and Bully just didn’t pull me in enough to make me want to keep playing.

It’s a tough problem, because they need to create that unfun atmosphere for the game to work. In a movie, that opening could have been fine, since the fun that (everyone assures me) follows quickly would make the restrictive opening fade into the background. But a game needs to grab the player immediately and make them want to keep playing, and Bully didn’t do that for me. I got that there was fun out there to be ferreted out and dug up, but the game didn’t make me want to go to that effort, so it went back to the bottom of the pile, and I pulled the next game off.

The setting totally reminded me of Revenge of the Nerds, Grease, or Back to the Future. I got into The Warriors-esque movie within a game storytelling. The unattractive characters fit well into the underdog theme and the pretty girls were approachable once you finished taking the classes.

I guess it’s just a matter of your attitude going in. It totally fit my expectations from reading reviews and playing the GTA games beforehand, and was the most fun yet challenging experience I’ve had since Beyond Good and Evil.

These discussions come up because it’s my job to create settings and activites that interest people and that will ultimately sell, so I am always looking at why one game sells and one didn’t.

in the end i feel it is very unfair to play a game for a few hours and make judgments about the theme and setting. It’s like you played GTA:SA and judged the whole game just on the first city.

I don’t know what the difference between us is, but the things you described had absolutely no negative effect on me. I didn’t mind the nerdy kid who wet himself, he was kind of funny in a sad way. I didn’t mind the “ugly” girl(s) and I had no problem with the jerk (hey, I was fairly certain I’d get to beat up on him sooner or later).

I wonder if it could be a Euro/US cultural difference, because the whole idealization thing just doesn’t do it for me. I liked Buffy, but I got bored of it pretty easily. As for Potter…maybe I’m just a cynical bastard but I really don’t like Harry Potter.

I’m thinking it all comes down to different target groups. I’m in the group that are more predisposed to like Bully. There’s a Swedish saying which may or may not work in English;
“Taste is like an ass, divided”.

In addition, even if you’re surrounded by people you like, everyone has people in school who are angry, nasty and treat them with disdain. If you’re a popular kid and live the high life, all the “unpopular” kids make snide remarks and find little ways to have their social revenge.

In all, the beauty of the plot-line is that if you finish the first chapter, the morality of your character shifts as you alienate Gary, the real jackass friend, and begin to win the school over. Just like it really worked during childhood, your friends become your enemies and vice versa as you mature and grow.

The one thing you definitely nailed on the head was the 1950s style. Personally, I felt that was intentional. How else could a company decide to include “greasers” as one of their groups. Plus, if they had put the setting in a modern high school, you’d run into Columbine related protests and severe violence. In Bully, the worst weapon available was the bottle rocket. In a modern school, it would have to be guns of all sorts and minor explosives (M80s). That’s not something I’d be comfortable putting out there.

It really doesn’t take more than a couple hours to reach that point, which makes me all the more disappointed you didn’t play just a little while longer. The payoff is definitely worth it.

The game idea is great, and I have no doubt that it picks up later on, as all these positive reviewers will attest… but unlike them, it wasn’t my job to play through the game, and it lacked enough “carrots” to keep me compelled. What I was interested in observing is whether Bully’s initial unappealing situation (at least to me) could have been avoided.

Better Luck Tommorow – over-achieving kids who deal with the pressures of school by living a double life. One of the better high school crime movies.

High School Gals – girls at an all-girls school plot to get a boyfriend, but shows them acting in ways that you normally don’t see girls depicted, somewhat gross and slovenly.

My So-Called Life – old MTV series with Claire Danes.

October Sky – geeks at a rural high school build rockets.

Is it just me, or is there a British tendency to make characters uglier, stupider, and nastier than real life, to make them feel better about themselves? I’ve never seen a British cartoon that didn’t have ugly characters.