Bully: Scholarship Edition review

It's an interesting thing to see from a political point of view, Bully, because there was a kind of hysteria surrounding the game, when it first came out on PS2 and Xbox, about the name and the premise.  The name itself caused many parents of young gamers and politicians to attack Rockstar for glorifying bullying in schools (which it sort of does).  The game almost didn't make it into stores, something that Rockstar games are used to, but the name did change to "Canis Canem Edit", a latin phrase which means "Dog Eat Dog", and something that might have confused many fans and gamers alike.  While this was something that was almost unprecedented in the gaming world, the recent release of "Bully: Scholarship Edition" has had the original name, and cover, back.  Why is this?  I personally do not really mind either way, a game's a game but I reckon this is a very clever piece of marketing.  If they managed to release the ban on the name of the game, they probably thought that releasing a next generation version of the game with this original name meant that some gamers would not realise that they were, in fact, the same game!  Either that or people who missed it the first time would be fooled into thinking that this was a new game.  Whether this is the truth or whether Rockstar just wanted justice, I cannot judge but it seems to me that this one has slipped away unnoticed.

The game itself is reasonably good and there is a great childish element to it.  You fit into one of two camps.  You either say "To Hell With Rules!" and don't turn up to class, beat up everyone in sight and sneak into the girls dorms or you do what I do; turn up to class and try and do your best, only beat up those who are trying to beat you up and make sure you get to bed on time.  All the elements of a school are there and you can be whoever you want; apologising to bullies makes them leave you alone but your respect drops whereas if you take them on, you might win.  Equally, you could end up face down in a bin.  You gotta love school, eh?

The graphics have been improved for this version but not much as far as I can see.  Obviously it was never going to be as beautiful as a game crafted specifically for a next gen system but you can't help thinking that you're downgrading you console by playing this.  The character designs are perfect and you can really tell that Rockstar had a lot of fun making this.  You have a lot of stereotypes to play with;  the jocks, the nerds, the bullies, the prefects, they all look like they should.  Even the headmaster looks like my old headmaster.  The design of the world is also very good.  There are definite areas where only one paticular clique hangs out;  The library for the nerds, the gym for the jock, etc.  The school itself is massive, something I think they had to do to make this game more interesting.  The voice acting throughout the game is very good.  You get the nerds with the squeeky voices and the crazed voice of the science teacher ringing throughout the school halls.  its obvious that Rockstar got very excited with this theme and ran with it and thankfully, they ran in the right direction.  In terms of world design, this game can't be touched

Where the game lacks, I suppose, is in its missions.  It does too much of a job in some ways, of holding your hand through the missions.  This changes later on obviously but I felt frustrated at first with the slow tutorial sections.  The other thing is, and it is a big thing, this game really can't help but being compared to the Grand Theft Auto series and I do feel like I'm playing GTA's little brother.  Being in a school with no transport, no heavy arms and a slightly toned down plot doesn't really compare in a good way to having full roam of an entire city with only the law to answer to.  It seems funny to me that it seems like Rockstar have tried to make a GTA for kids but ended up making a game with a 15 certificate (most kids leave school at 16).

In any case, Bully isn't a bad game and it makes you think that you are playing a diluted version of Grand Theft Auto which is disappointing.  I would love to see a hardcore version of the series but, due to the nature of the game, this is very unlikely to happen. Bully makes the wait for GTA4 even more unbearable.

77%

Week in gaming

I've been playing a lot of Madden recently.  Might be the fact that it's the off-season or because I started playing for real again recently but I just can't put it down.  On Xbox live, it's particularly hard because all of the competition is American and especially good.  They know exactly what a dime package, cover one while blitzing the safety on the weak side means.  Having said that, I know what it means too but they don't just know what it means they know how and when to use it. meaning that they get pick-six after pick-six (apologies to everyone that has this going over their heads).  In other Madden news, I lost in the semi-finals of the playoffs.  Lost to the Rams.  I stupidly went for 2 points after scoring an equalizing Touchdown in the final minutes, only to have Brandon Jacobs get taken down on the 1 yard line.  Gutted!

N+ is an Xbox live Arcade version of the well renowned flash game N, a great platformer where you star as a futuristic ninja.  N+ takes the game to console and it's even better than the original.  There are far more levels that are even more inventive and the console controls work so much easier.

In Call of Duty 4, I'm on level 35.  I tend to play Free-for-all these days.  I like playing team-tactical but you have to be lucky not to get at least one complete cock!  I find that I can sometimes be on a complete roll and win free-for-all everytime and sometimes I come near to the bottom.  I usually use a sub-machine gun and martyrdom.

Apart from that, nothing much else is going on.

XNA

This is why I love Xbox. News broke at the GDC a week and a half ago that XNA, a developers kit for Xbox 360, was to be released onto Xbox Live as of that day. This means two things. One, for indie developers, there's a kit that allows them to develop games for the 360. This really is a first. Before, the only chance that a developer had at making a console games was to make a Flash game for PC and hope that somebody picked it up. Either that or spend a lot of cash on buying a less professional dev kit and making bad games that way. Now, there is a fully licenced kit and it's free.

Two, gamers can download these games at no cost. This means cheap, often innovative gaming made by some great unknown developers. There may well be some badly made tat out there but the standards are sure to be high. Indie developers often have some more innovative ideas too because it is ideas like this that gets their games discovered.

Already there are some great games to grab, and while they are only trial versions for now, it is still a great way to see what is to come. One of the games, Dishwasher, is one of the best 2D scrolling fighters I have ever seen. It is games like this and the fun puzzler, Jelly Car, that are going to make XNA a brilliant idea. After all, you can't argue with free games!

Nintendo makes me a better person?

Recently I went out and bought Brain Training again. I had it before, played it every day, then I was poor so I traded it for a different game (damn Game and their trade-ins!). I also bought the Sight Training with it. The two games are different but also very similar. They both work on this "age" system whereby the better you do, the younger your brain or eyes are. Sight training has some very repetitive games but also has some great sports games, such as volleyball which involves spiking the ball when it is in a certain highlighted area. It measures you on how many you successfully scored without getting blocked and also judges how close to the centre of the ball you were. This may seem like a bit of a tenuous link to training your sight but I'm sure it's doing something.

My Mum, who was given a DS for Christmas and has been playing Brain Training, More Brain Training and Sight Training since then, pointed something out. She had the first Brain Training for a while before she got More Brain Training and, for a little while at least, she had two different brain ages. One, on the first game, was reasonably low, in the twenties because she'd been playing for some time. The other, the More game, was high, in the Fifties. Surely this means that the games are not improving anything. If a person has an IQ of 150, they are not likely to get an IQ of 50 if they take a different test. A person should be able to achieve a similar IQ no matter what questions are in it. Brain Training obviously doesn't work in this way. It kind of takes away from the big picture, but Brain Training seems to measure how good you are at these particular games, not how intelligent you are.

Obviously, there are elements about these games that will make you better at certain activities in real life. There is no point denying that doing a little mental arithmetic everyday is going to make you quicker in general at adding, even if it's just counting your change at the Post Office. Some games do make me wonder what relevance this will have to my everyday life. I suppose it's not important in the long run.

Where the sight training really comes into it's own is with its descriptions of what you are training to achieve or what the games are used for; some games are for Hand-Eye-Co-ordination, some are for peripheral vision. I suppose the point is that you are given some explanation as to what this particular mini-game is doing to improve your sight.

The main difference between these games and most others is their style of play. Whereas some game could be played for 10 hours straight and when complete might never be played again, the training games are played for 15 minutes a day and technically never end. While the novelty soon wheres off, there is some guilt felt when you pick it up after a week of not playing and Dr Kawashima says "Long time no see!". There is a compulsion to play every day for fear of losing all intelligence.

All in all, the training games are a different style and have invited a new type of player to join the world of gaming, and that's never a bad thing.

Shift

Found this amazingly innovative flash platformer. Awesome references to Portal (ok, so i'm OBSESSED!!!). check it

GTA IV site opens

The new Grand Theft Auto game is due for release in the UK on 29th April and, I reckon, this is going to be the biggest release of all time. Halo 3 was big but it was a single platform game. With the joint PS3 and Xbox release, there is no way this already massively popular series can't make big news. For starters, the previous series made three fantastic games made even more popular by the contraversiality, especially in the final game, and the longevity of the overall exprience was something that assured the player would be hooked for quite some time. The sequel has been anticipted for a long time and not just because people have been waiting for the first next generation GTA game but also just because they have been waiting for a GTA game for quite some time!

So here it is, the official website. Ok, so it's not the biggest piece of news but it might provide, over the coming weeks, some exciting news and maybe some good reveals. Check it out!

Smash Bros. Brawl Videos

These are two parts of a video that show you all of the new characters and stages. Snake looks awesome!

This next video shows how the Smash Ball needs to be picked up before the Final Smash can be utilised.

This next video showcases some of the Assist Trophies.