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Bully – Discovering a Classic

December 22, 2023August 20, 2025Posted in ArticlesTagged Anniversary, Bully, Canis Canim Edit, Design, Games, gaming, Grand Theft Auto, GTA, GTA 6, Jimmy Hopkins, Rockstar, Rockstar Games, San Andreas, School], Story, VI, Vice City, Video Games, Writing1 Comment

I’ve recently been doing a backlog binge of older open-world games I never got to play the first time around.

Titles have included the Guy Ritchie-inspired The Getaway, which simulates ten square miles of London for its story. Another is Mafia, which uses its city more for immersion into its 1930s world than for regular open-world hi-jinks.

The other old open-world game that I’ve been playing and has captured my heart is the infamous Bully.

Bully (also known as Canis Canim Edit) is such an unique game, even among Grand Theft Auto clones.

Despite releasing originally on the sixth generation PlayStation 2 and then re-released on the seventh, eighth, and now ninth console generation, the game never got a sequel, which I feel is a terrible pity.

I wanted to write about my experiences playing, because Bully deserves to be experienced, even so long after its time in the spotlight.

Dog Eat Dog – Why I Love Bully

Bully was developed by Rockstar Vancouver, a Canadian offshoot of the “Rockstar” brand, known for Grand Theft Auto.

While Rockstar North developed GTA, other studios effectively built GTA clones. Rockstar San Diego created Red Dead Redemption in 2010, and in 2006 Vancouver created Bully.

It’s both amusing and interesting to see GTA, the ultimate adults-only game, have to fit the mould of a schoolboy simulator.

Each new scenario took me by surprise as Bully would put its own spin on the standard GTA tropes.

The missions, vehicles, characters, authority, Bully has all the ingredients for GTA but they are tweaked just a little to accommodate both the cast and the age rating (Bully was released as a 15+ rather than the 18+ of GTA).

Things like spray-painting offensive words onto walls, riding a BMX into town to go to the carnival, Halloween pranks, Christmas snowball fights, Sports Days, it creates a charming atmosphere of being made for rebellious teens who aren’t allowed GTA, but doesn’t patronise the player either.

And while some games could lose shine as more time is spent in them, this charm of “new-yet-familiar” kept me coming back to Bully, both for the boarding school role-play and simulation, as well as the wilder moments that it invents for the story.

_{Hiding from the prefects after dropping a firecracker down the toilet…again. (Source: rockstargames.com)}

Bully does actually play a lot like a roleplaying game with its school timetable. There are six classes; Chemistry, English, Art, Gym, Shop, and Photography.

While some main missions require a particular level (the second half of the game focuses a lot on photography), a player can easily play truant and miss out on classes all together, with no real consequences unless they are caught.

However these classes give you different abilities once you pass. Chemistry allows for restocks of the player’s arsenal (all schoolboy things like firecrackers, bags of marbles, and stink bombs among others).

Art allows the player to kiss girls and boys for a health boost, and Shop lets the player upgrade their BMX, one of the better ways to get around the world.

The game also works on a yearly calendar, starting with the beginning of school term in September and finishing sometime in the summer. This allows for standout missions around Halloween and Christmas, but it’s more than just one-off episodes.

Being set in New England, the seasonal change is dramatic. At the start of the game, the leaves are coloured anywhere from red to yellow and occasionally fall from the trees alongside the odd the rain shower.

In the third chapter winter has come to Bullworth, with the cast now sporting big coats, hats, and gloves. The trees are leafless and it gets darker earlier. New props such as snowmen, snowballs, and shovelling snow as a detention are only available in this season.

Once the snow is gone and the trees sprout their new leaves, the rain continues to pour until the final chapter where the sun comes out and signals the start of an endless summer.

_{Climbing a tree and raining down chaos with your slingshot…a true schoolboy experience. (rockstargames.com).}

Bully doesn’t have the most expansive of world compared with stablemates Vice City and San Andreas, but I think it is far more detailed that either of those games.

The school on its own is rather impressive with dorms, a library, gym, locker rooms, football stadium, basketball court, swimming pool, frat house, auto repair shop, and observatory.

Then the main building also houses the headteacher’s office, cafeteria, and the four classrooms, all of which are open and explorable in the game.

The town of Bullworth is split into four distinct areas. Old Bullworth Vale is for the preppy students and faculty members, with mansions overlooking the water and lighthouse.

Bullworth Town is a major shopping district where the Geeks hang out in the comic book store. New Coventry is an run-down urban estate for the Greasers, and finally Blue Skies is a trailer and industrial park where the Townies stay.

On top of the four neighbourhoods Bully also has a map full of extra locations that are used for maybe one mission or are just window-dressing, but give an extra flavour to the world.

Things like the Happy Volts Asylum, a fully working train yard, The Bullworth Dam, a church and graveyard with a preaching vicar, abandoned tenements, Billy Crane’s Travelling Carnival, and the half-sunken pirate ship next to of one of the many islands off the coast, each one gives a little extra spice or history to Bullworth and makes the city fun to explore.

_{Bullworth Academy is only one part of the map, but could easily be its own game. (rockstargames.com).}

Bully does suffer from the same strong neighbourhood lines that were in Vice City and San Andreas, where distinct seams were visible between say the shopping district and the industrial estate, but it’s forgiven for its age.

And despite its small size, I think it feels richer, mainly due to the level of detail that could be afforded a smaller world.

One thing I do enjoy about the game being a small map is that I get to see the same characters again and again wandering around Bullworth.

While in GTA and Red Dead you do see a few of the same faces in the gang hideouts or the saloon, they soon became background characters to the main character’s individual pursuit, only to be interacted with in cutscenes.

With Bully, I always felt this growing sense of getting to know characters, even if there isn’t much outside of a simple positive/negative comment that I can throw out at them.

It perfectly mirrors being a new kid at school, slowing getting to know people as they pass by in the corridor or school grounds, some saying hello or others stopping you with a quest, some that don’t have any greater role in the game or cutscenes that just being a recognisable face in the crowd.

_{School’s out…but sliding down the handrail will still get you into trouble. (Source: rockstargames.com)}

And after a while it’s fun to pass through the school and be able to recognise people; Gloria the kleptomaniac, Mandy/Pinky/Angie/Christy of the cheerleading squad, Algie the nerd, Russell the slow-witted but beefy tank, and Pete, the only sensible and rational character in the entire game.

But as the location is a school, it’s not just school kids walking around. Teachers walk around from class to class, giving a real sense of a school working to a timetable, rather than just cycling through character and animation loops.

And Jimmy Hopkins, the playable lead, seems alright. He does act like a proto-form of a GTA character; he’s brash, confrontational, with streaks of sadism and misogyny, but I’ll excuse it due to him literally being a fifteen year old child.

While Jimmy is definitely ruthless, he is also shown to comfort other characters when they are feeling down and being heroic in other instances like putting out fires in the school.

Jimmy is actually quite interesting as a Rockstar lead, mainly due to his ambivalence to the entire school system. When he first arrives at Bullworth, Jimmy doesn’t look to take over and become its leader. He just wants to get through with the least amount of hassle and then leave.

It’s only to get back at the sociopathic schoolmate and current school ruler Gary that spurs Jimmy forward. The plot is relatively simple in its driving force, but once again it’s the surrounding essence that makes it shine.

The fact that Jimmy has to defeat all the head of the school gangs before ruling the school, how the different cliques vie for control and actually fight in the corridors and grounds, and how most the cast that give missions act like adults in a GTA game when none of them are older than sixteen is endearing.

It reminds me of games like Yakuza or films like Brick, where young characters have latched onto what they thinks makes someone “cool”, where in reality they are just massive dorks acting like their are in their own personal movie, with Jimmy being one of the only “straight men” in the game.

_{Every character in the game takes themselves way too seriously and it makes for some of Rockstar’s funniest work. (Source: rockstargames.com)}

Like I said right at the start of this piece, the theme of Bully is its strongest suit, but that’s not to diminish its other qualities. It’s a classic sixth generation console game, with a strikingly detailed world, a strong and hilarious story, and a great mix of action, exploration, and set pieces.

So if you’re waiting with anxious breath for GTA VI and wanting something to hit that Rockstar itch, or you are just looking for a open-world game that has a different pace and flavour, I think Bully might just be the thing for you. And hey, maybe one day we’ll get a sequel…

_{Banner Photo Source: rockpapershotgun.com.}

L.A. Noire and Pacing in Games

March 6, 2019January 9, 2023Posted in ArticlesTagged Case Files, Cole Phelps, Design, DLC, Downloadable Content, Games, LA Noire, Narrative, Nicholson Electroplating, Online, Pacing, Reefer Madness, Rockstar, Slip Of The Tongue, Team Bondi, The Naked City, tomclement1, Video Games, VR Cases, Writing2 Comments

It is weird to think that L.A. Noire came out eight years ago, back in the good old days of 2011. And being in development of some kind for nearly six years, we are fast coming up on fifteen years of L.A. Noire being a “thing”.

And in the past few years the game got somewhat of a new lease on life, being released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in November 2017, with enhancements to accommodate for new features such as the touch screen on the Switch and VR abilities for the PlayStation.

With these new enhancements came the “complete” story, compiling all of the cases that had previously been DLC (short for downloadable content) into the experience. For me however, these “new” cases being placed into the story has made the game feel a little disjointed.

La Noire VR — *L.A. Noire VR* allowed to players to step into the (gum)shoes of Cole Phelps in specific cases made for the system. (Source: dualshockers.com)

Let’s have a look at the cases, because while I love nearly all of them, the fact that they are DLC makes me view them differently. And part of it is to do with pacing.

This isn’t me railing against the fact that these are cases that should have been in the original retail experience. The game is already 20+ hours long, five cases of varying length is hardly going to up the playtime.

I can also understand why DLC cases work for something like L.A. Noire. L.A. Noire is designed almost like a TV serial, with each new case being a new episode. It will have scenarios that link between cases such as the Black Dahlia in Homicide and morphine in Vice, but each case is mainly self-contained. And yet these new cases seem to alter the balance of the pacing of the game.

From Snails to Speeding Bullets – A Quick Look at Pacing

Pacing is something that never gets much attention when it comes to games. Similar to editing in film, it is a phenomenon that you don’t know is there until it is not there. For example, pacing is only really brought up when it is a detriment to the game, with many walking simulators or opening hours in open-world games being criticised for their slower pace.

Open-world games are probably the hardest to do; how can you have a character-driven story if the player can decide to head off and not focus on the narrative (see Bethesda’s games). Pacing can also affect a sense of time, feeling like scenes are shunted together. I felt this in AC: Unity, where a moody European white boy became an Assassin and then due to the breakneck presentation felt like he attained the rank of Grand Master within a week.

Talking of assassins, AC: Syndicate’s pacing is better than many of the previous games by virtue of one screen; the shot of Big Ben ticking by. Any time the game wanted to move forward in time the screen cut to sped-up footage of Big Ben cycling through the hours. That at least gives us a sense of progression rather than the Frye Twins seemingly dissolving the criminal underbelly of London over a weekend.

AC Syndicate Big Ben — This one aspect of presentation helped Syndicate’s narrative feel more expansive than previous entries. (Source: steamcommunity.com)

I’ll hold up Spec Ops: The Line as a game with excellent pace and flow. While the twist doesn’t fully work as it shows new material, the pacing goes a long way to help play up the insanity that fuels the twist. Each new chapter from the very start to the very end, starts slow before methodically upping the action, drawing you into the experience and mimicking Walker’s slow descent into brutality and madness. You have your peaks and troughs, intense action with stealth.

That’s why CoD4: Modern Warfare works well too. The game starts slow with the SAS in Russia before becoming an all out action game with the Americans in the Middle East. Once the nuke has gone off, the SAS take over the main action, but the game starts with a distinct “medium” in between stealth and OTT action in the level “Safehouse”.

This works wonders because after the two stealth levels of “All Ghillied Up” and “One Shot, One Kill”, we have the level “Heat”, which uses the same map as “Safehouse”, but has the action on full. CoD4 gives us the stealth to get to grips with the level before ramping up the action. This is seen in the micro in levels such as “Crew Expendable” and “Sins Of The Father”, as well as the macro in how the acts are structured and levels follow on from each other.

CoD4 Crew Expendable — *CoD4* starts with stealth to ease players into the controls, before slowly ratcheting up the action. (Source: nerdreactor.com)

Call Of Duty: World at War has some interesting pacing issues. Since the campaign of WaW can be played co-op, certain levels had to be left out. This means that the excellent stealth level “Vendetta” is cut. The following level, “Their Land, Their Blood” works because of the juxtaposition and slower pace of the preceding level, going from being on the back foot to charging at the enemy.

Going straight from “Hard Landing” to “Their Land, Their Blood” feels exhausting. It could be argued that the change of character may add to this jarring tone, however we hardly get any character introduction in “Vendetta” or even at the start of the game, so it feels more to do with the unrelenting gameplay.

This is the same reason I had real trouble with the original Black Ops. My favourite level of the game is “U.S.D.D.”, a level without any shooting and is one big cutscene. I love it because it allows a break after the all-out action of “Operation 40” and “Vorkuta”. And while there are stealth sections in Black Ops, they aren’t mandatory or last an entire level (such as WMD and Rebirth). This can get instill a sense of weariness when explosions end each level.

Now you see how pacing can make a good game turn into a great game. So, back to L.A. Noire.

Back on the Beat – L.A. Noire and Pacing

As previously mentioned, while nearly each case in L.A. Noire is its own story, some cases add together to form a larger picture. These mostly happen on the Vice desk. There is a running B story throughout the whole of L.A. Noire about gangster Mickey Cohen staging a heist of army surplus morphine, which the majority of the Vice desk is spent dealing with.

These cases then lead into the Arson desk that has its own mini arc. Another B story is about property land developers in a building scam, pretending to build homes for returning GIs before burning them and then collecting the insurance. But the man they have sent to burn down the houses (a mentally scarred flamethrower from WW2) has started targeting any and all houses rather than the ones they told him to.

The Arson desk follows this plotline all the way to the conclusion, with every case about the arson attacks and the development fund.

The DLC cases slide into each desk and end the steady pace that the game has because of these running B stories.

LA Noire Gunfight — The DLC is at least thrilling, with several action sequences and memorable investigations. (Source: geforce.com).

Traffic seems to get away pretty unscathed. Each case of Traffic features new suspects and scenarios and has no overarching narrative like the other desks. The new case, A Slip Of The Tongue, slots easily into Traffic, following the same one-off pattern as the previous crimes.

In Vice, things start to get a little tricky. In the original edition, there are only three cases (the same as Traffic), compared to six of Homicide and five of Arson.

The new cases add more variety meaning the Vice desk isn’t all about morphine. One of the new cases, The Naked City, also sets up that Det. Bekowsky, the partner on the Traffic Desk, eventually moved up to Homicide and was partnered with Rusty Galloway, the partner from the Homicide desk.

It is strange how this case was cut, especially as it introduces Bekowksy as part of Homicide before he appears in the final Vice case, Manifest Destiny.

Another reason why it is strange that these cases were cut is that they actually foreshadow Cole’s later infidelity. During driving sequences, Roy mentions Cole’s regular visits to the Blue Room and Bekowsky asking what Cole looks for in a woman. But these lines should have been in the original experience to make that character turn actually feel plausible instead of bizarre.

Arson is the “worst” offender when it comes to pacing. I like the Nicholson Electroplating case and I think it is the best of the DLCs, but when looking at the game as a whole it feels out of place.

First, some background.

Elsa Lichtmann, jazz singer and mistress of lead character Cole Phelps, receives the life insurance payment of her friend, Lou Buchwalter.

Lou was working as carpenter on one of the doomed housing projects, but the timbre he was working on gave way and he fell to his death. The house fires that Cole has been investigating are on the land that the property developers want to build on.

After putting two and two together (the house fires are perpetrated by the developers so they can build shoddy houses), Cole gets threatened by his higher-ups and told to close his investigation.

To keep pressure on the situation outside of the police force, Cole enlists comrade-now-turned insurance investigator Jack Kelso to inspect Elsa’s friend’s death, thus exposing the racket. Jack’s cases play one after the other in the original experience (including the final level), but the DLC case Nicholson Electroplating slots in right before the final level.

LA Noire Nicholson — *Nicholson Electroplating* starts with a bang…and puts a stop to the Kelso-centric cases. (Source: dsogaming.com).

This completely upends the narrative, with a case that has no bearing on the story while said story is hurtling towards its conclusion.

But that is why they work perfectly as DLC.

Instead of just ANOTHER case in a long line of cases, the DLC is a reminder of that appealing central core of the game. Seeing these old friends again, Bekowsky, Rusty, Roy, and Biggs, and getting to do the old “crack the case” thing one last time (which could get tiring after having several in a row), it feels comfortable, safe even.

So while these new additions can feel out of place, seemingly halting the steady pace of the game, the episodic nature of L.A. Noire allows them to work as individual cases, unmoored to the extravagant length of the base game.

Remasters and definitive editions are becoming a bigger draw in the industry than ever before. Games like Dark Souls and Resident Evil 2 have been remade and changed aspects like bonfire warping and enemy introductions. So that is why we must remember and catalogue the original way that games were played and delivered.

The way L.A. Noire was originally published must be remembered for posterity, a testament to excellent story pacing within the art form, as well as the power in how a narrative can be structured.

Banner Photo Source: ign.com.