Rockstar’s Bully

By Shane | August 9, 2006

Poor Rockstar just does not get a break, does it? If their recent Xbox 360 game Table Tennis had the option to bludgeon your opponent to death with the ping pong paddle then the political figures, school boards and activists would most likely go after that too. I can think of hundreds of other games that are just as violent as Grand Theft Auto, where’s their media attention? What about Saints Row or Dead Rising? That has gory violence against humans, of the dead kind. I guess every crowd needs a black sheep.

The premise for Rockstar’s Bully, a school-experience meets sandbox game is a 15-year-old boy named Jimmy Hopkins, who must defend himself against school bullies at a ficticious U.S. boarding school named Bullworth Academy. Befitting title, that. Some weapons of choice will include bats, stink bombs and bags of marbles to name a few. The game won’t contain blood or characters dying, so they say. So why the negative hype over Bully? The school boards are up in arms and are warning retailers not to sell this game when it is released because of the example it will show to kids at school. Sadly, this practice of boycotting will only up the hype ante even more.

Perhaps the title of Rockstar’s upcoming game, due to be released in October, is ironic and metaphorical at the same time. Was Rockstar’s motive for producing this game due to the ‘bullying’ practices of the politicians as a result of GTA? Is Rockstar playing the protagonist in Bully?

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Image via Kotaku
Brian D. Crecente of Rocky Mountain News and Kotaku sat down with Rockstar in New York to get a sneak peak at the game.