Game Diary #9: Bully

Hello and welcome to episode nine of Game Diary: Bully. Last time, I learned some new fighting moves, and travelled to a mental asylum, where I angered someone or something known as "the watcher." I also found I had mixed feelings about the design of the mental asylum -- on the one hand I loved the nothing-is-sacred approach to parody that Rockstar (again) favoured; on the other, I was put off by some inconsistencies in logic and characterisation.

For a more detailed run-down, or to read my earlier adventures in and around Bullworth Academy, check out the links below.

25 March 2010
I took some yearbook photos for photography class. Now I can take pictures of every student for some kind of reward. Or at least I presume there’s a reward if and when you successfully take everybody’s picture. I found it a bit annoying that the pictures have to be in a certain distance range (around mid-close-up to facial close-up), and must be from directly in front of the person (with them looking in your direction). It would be way more fun running around taking the craziest pictures possible, consequently making everyone look stupid for their yearbook picture. Wait, scratch that... Such pictures would make everyone look way better for the yearbook. The challenge would be to capture each person doing something representative of either their personality or public image. I think it’d be fun (provided it remained optional).

I mentioned back in Game Diary #7 that I’d been crowned king of the school -- reigning over all the Jocks, Nerds, Preps, and Greasers. Today that world came crumbling down. While I was off painting graffiti on the town hall, the school turned against me. In game terms, this means an instant hit of 75 respect points for each clique. On the plus side, my standing with the townspeople somehow went up 25 respect points.

Why you hatin' on me?

As is always the case when people are hating on Jimmy, the next few missions required me to help people too weak and pathetic to help themselves -- starting with the Jocks. So I saved some kids from a burning building, prevented said building from burning down, and got blamed for the whole incident. (Figures.) Then I killed some rats -- apparently they aren’t just there for atmosphere (I’m a little disappointed about that). The Nerds were freaking out about not being able to study for a pre-pre-pre-med exam, and calling me a terrible leader. One even accosted, “Some king you turned out to be.” Ouch. What did I ever do to you, you ungrateful jerks?

Finally, I paid another visit to the mental asylum. Once again the task was to break someone out. This time, though, I got an outfit for my trouble. I’m now the proud owner of an orderly uniform. I think I’ll come up with a new custom outfit tomorrow; there must be some way I can integrate this spiffy white get-up with gloves into my regular dress.

In other news, I got a new hangout. I “evicted” some townies from their place in the industrial district. And I was arrested more than two dozen times in an hour playing the game today. Around a third of these came while attempting to graffiti the town hall, as I repeatedly bumped into a policeman or towns person on my bike on the way there. One time I bizarrely got knocked down from the top of a ladder just when I thought I’d got away. It looked pretty freaky -- Jimmy went down like he’d been shot. Most of the other arrests were a result of me “acting out” in public, which is code for attacking random strangers in the street, and assaulting police officers with a slingshot.

I think there's something big just around the corner.

Bully screenshot