Lock Up the Kids — It’s “Bully”!

The latest video game to get on parents’ nerves and have them fearing for their children’s sanity is Bully, by (who else) Rockstar Games. Yep, the same people accused of corrupting the morals of children with the Grand Theft Auto series, along with producing The Warriors, a hard-hitting fighter based on the cult classic movie. Rockstar can do no wrong in our eyes; they’ve consistently been edgy and fun at the same time. That’s hard for the best writers and directors, but this game development company has done it time and again.

When Bully was announced last year, it drew a wave of protests. The concept was that you were a bully and trying to take over the school. Seeing how much fuss that caused, they redesigned the game — now the player is a bullied kid who fights back. The controversy hasn’t stopped, though; a lawyer in Miami is trying to block it from store shelves in Florida. In England, a Labour M.P. is arguing for banning the game completely. In Belgium, teachers started a petition to try & ban the game from their country too. The “controversy” seems pretty manufactured to us. Having seen an early version of the game, we can’t find anything especially terrible about it. It’s about as dangerous as a PG-13 movie, so it’s ironic that Bully is getting more bad press than the more violent GTA series that put Rockstar on the map. We’d go so far as to say that Bully has a positive message: Build a social network of friends and allies, learn new things to help you achieve your goals and most importantly, stand up for yourself. If you’ve got a kid who’s nervous about going into high school, we recommend picking up a copy of this game — it might help them build self-confidence. The game is available for pre-order HERE, and in case you need it strategy guides can be pre-ordered HERE.

The other game we’re watching is NBA Live 07. We’ve never seen a game so geared toward the hardcore baller. EA knows they’ve got a winner on their hands, and they’re advertising the heck out of it. We’ve seen commercials on ESPN and MTV, even an interview with Jay-Z where he hypes the game - he’s an unlockable character. There’s even an Adidas cross-promotion in the works, though we don’t have details on it. We think it deserves the big marketing push it’s getting — it’s got the deepest gameplay and best graphics we’ve ever seen. It beats watching the real games, in our opinion. If you’re serious about your game, you NEED NBA Live 07. You can get it for most formats by clicking HERE.

Tweet This Post