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Bully
Bully Front Cover
Name: Bully
Developer(s): Rockstar Vancouver (PlayStation 2)
Rockstar New England (Xbox 360, Windows)
Rockstar Toronto (Wii)
Publisher(s): Rockstar Games
Release date: October 17, 2006
Platform(s): PlayStation 2
Xbox 360
Wii
Microsoft Windows
Engine: Renderware
Protagonist: James "Jimmy" Hopkins
Location: Bullworth Academy

Bully, also known as Canis Canem Edit, is a third person action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar Vancouver and published by Rockstar Games.

It was released by Rockstar Vancouver for the Playstation 2 on October 17, 2006 in the United States, and October 25, 2006 in the United Kingdom. An Xbox version was planned but was cancelled for undisclosed reasons. The game was re-released as Bully: Scholarship Edition on March 4, 2008 for the Xbox 360 and October 24, 2008 on the PC. The PlayStation 2 version of the game is also available in the United States as a special edition that includes a limited edition comic book and a dodgeball of the same style as the ones used in the game, with the word Bully embossed on it.

A sequel to Bully is or was in development, but was reportedly cancelled, though this hasn't been confirmed by Rockstar Games. If the game is still in development, and would be developed by Rockstar New England, Rockstar Games has yet to announce it.

Plot and Setting[]

Bully is a sandbox game set in a school environment. The player takes control of teenage rebel James "Jimmy" Hopkins, who from the opening cutscene is revealed to be a difficult student with a turbulent background. The game concerns the events that follow Jimmy being dropped off at Bullworth Academy, a fictional boarding school. The player is free to explore the school campus and town, or to complete the main missions. The game makes extensive use of minigames. Some are used to earn money, others to improve Jimmy's abilities.

School classes themselves are done in the form of minigames, broken into five levels of increasing difficulty. English, for example, is a word scramble minigame, and as Jimmy completes the level, he learns to apologize to bullies, deliver better taunts, apologize to Prefects and finally to apologize to the police.

Jimmy has a multitude of weapons available, although they tend to run along the lines of things a school boy might actually attain, such as slingshots, bags of marbles, stink bombs, and later in the game, a bottle rocket launcher and a spud cannon. He also has an assortment of vehicles to operate — mainly bicycles with different abilities, but also a moped, a go-kart, a skateboard and on rare occasions, a lawn mower.

The game takes place mostly at Bullworth Academy, a fictional independent boarding school in the New England area of the United States. Jimmy ends up enrolled in the school when his newly married mother and fifth stepfather go on a year-long honeymoon cruise. The school is located in the also fictional town of Bullworth, which resembles Connecticut (this would also explain the high prevalence of 'Old money' and 'Nouveau Riche' influences). The school itself is a classical neo-gothic design and is similar to many other public schools and colleges in the United Kingdom and New England, in particular Fettes College in Edinburgh.

Characters[]

Main article: Characters in Bully

The game focuses on Bullworth's newest student, Jimmy Hopkins. As he advances through his academic career at Bullworth Academy, he may interact with the school's students and teachers, as well as people from the neighboring towns, many of whom will give him errands to complete. He is greeted by Gary Smith, a scheming, unstable sociopath and Pete Kowalski, a shy student who has yet to make any friends. Jimmy has to navigate his way through the five cliques at the school — the Bullies, Nerds, Preppies, Greasers and Jocks— as well as the Townies, the school faculty and all the other adult townsfolk. Unlike other games from Rockstar no two characters in Bully are the same, and every character has their own name, personality, and appearance. Most of the voice actors of the teenagers and kids were in their late teens and early twenties to make the games dialogue feel as realistic as possible.

External Links[]

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