New Review Posted: Bully

[Daniel Weissenberger]

Brad Gallaway plays Bully, and begins by addressing the media-generated controversy:

"Before its release, Rockstar’s Bully found itself in the center of a media firestorm. The subject of nonspecific and wildly rampant hyperbole, popular media had a heyday painting it as a "Columbine simulator" and the next major piece of socially irresponsible entertainment set to corrupt the innocent and impressionable children of America. Since most of these claims were made by headline-hungry people who knew little to nothing about the actual game (or videogames in general), it comes as no surprise that the project is much tamer and far less violent than dozens of other discs passing completely under the radar of politicians and news anchors everywhere."

Yes, but what kind of game is it? Find out here!

[Snack Eater]

I think you're underestimating Bully. Now, I haven't played through all of it so I can't say anything about the story except that it's entertaining and fairly well-written. It's GTA, sure, but it's more polished.

[Gene Park]

Whether or not Bully is good is irrelevant to me in this post. I just have to commend Brad in writing yet another basic, simple-to-understand review that really has me convinced. Brad's lucid style always wins me over, and intimidates me from even thinking about reviewing again.

[random_zombie]

Meh. His discussion of the pertinence of San Andreas versus Bully kind of, at least for me, puts the credibility of the review down.

Another topic altogether I suppose, but what really riles me, and you're included in this too, gene, is critics bitching about sequelitis as something outside of the inherent craftsmanship of any given game.

in regard to rockstar: what if bully came first?

in regard to nintendo: what if TP came before OoT?

it all just seems fakely stubborn to me. for the sake of stubbornness in the first place.

again, meh.

ETA: on a whim, i just looked at metacritic for bully. as i guessed, gamecritics' review was at the complete bottom with it's 65. i'm sorry, but the eagerness to be "different" from reviews at large really shoots itself in the foot. with a site like GC, which i've been following for several years now, it's somewhat sad that i can predict that it'll give the lowest review for the sake of being the lowest review, and achieving, in that act, nothing.

[Avptallarita]

Originally Posted by random_zombie

ETA: on a whim, i just looked at metacritic for bully. as i guessed, gamecritics' review was at the complete bottom with it's 65. i'm sorry, but the eagerness to be "different" from reviews at large really shoots itself in the foot. with a site like GC, which i've been following for several years now, it's somewhat sad that i can predict that it'll give the lowest review for the sake of being the lowest review, and achieving, in that act, nothing.

I don't have anything to say on the rest of the post, but this bit is untrue. In my experience, almost every time that Game Critics gave a grade lower than the average (like Mario Sunshine or Eternal Darkness), it was an evaluation which (mostly) corresponded with my own, and which deserved kudos for seeing through the hype.

[Gene Park]

Originally Posted by random_zombie

Meh. His discussion of the pertinence of San Andreas versus Bully kind of, at least for me, puts the credibility of the review down.

Another topic altogether I suppose, but what really riles me, and you're included in this too, gene, is critics bitching about sequelitis as something outside of the inherent craftsmanship of any given game.

in regard to rockstar: what if bully came first?

in regard to nintendo: what if TP came before OoT?

it all just seems fakely stubborn to me. for the sake of stubbornness in the first place.

again, meh.

ETA: on a whim, i just looked at metacritic for bully. as i guessed, gamecritics' review was at the complete bottom with it's 65. i'm sorry, but the eagerness to be "different" from reviews at large really shoots itself in the foot. with a site like GC, which i've been following for several years now, it's somewhat sad that i can predict that it'll give the lowest review for the sake of being the lowest review, and achieving, in that act, nothing.

Sequelitis is exactly what it sounds like it is: A fuckin' disease that is plaguing this industry. I'm not saying sequels that are more or less similar to their predecessors should be eradicated, but that the industry leans on successful formulas way too often.

How is it different than panning your run-of-the-mill Hollywood story, or bashing a movie for copping out for a Hollywood ending?

If a game is crafted well, like for example Twilight Princess, then the game should be commended accordingly.

Of course, we can always continue to ask: What if Twilight Princess came out before OoT?

Then duh, TP would clearly be the better game. But unfortunately, that's not the case.

If OoT came out after TP, then OoT may be considered the worst of the two (although I might argue the story had more heart in OoT. This still holds true after replaying OoT for a few hours recently after I played TP).

But just because a game makes slight improvements to a formula doesn't automatically make it better. It's up to people to decide whether those marginal (or vast) differences contribute to the overall formula, upend the "tea table" (as Iwata puts it) or adds little.

As long as the game doesn't overall worsen the quality of the game or the formula, then I don't believe the game should be punished too much. For example, I would never think about giving TP a 6.5. That would be, IMO, making a low score for lowness' sake. I'd instead give it, as a handful of other sites have, an 8.5 or 9.0 instead. I'm not going to give it a 10 based soley on the fact that OoT and Wind Waker before it received similar scores.

[Gene Park]

Originally Posted by random_zombie

ETA: on a whim, i just looked at metacritic for bully. as i guessed, gamecritics' review was at the complete bottom with it's 65. i'm sorry, but the eagerness to be "different" from reviews at large really shoots itself in the foot. with a site like GC, which i've been following for several years now, it's somewhat sad that i can predict that it'll give the lowest review for the sake of being the lowest review, and achieving, in that act, nothing.

As for this, I don't think any of the critics give low scores just for the sake of low scores. You give the critics too little credit for the amount of thought they put into the score.

I know this is an old game, and has little to do with the sequelitis we're talking about. But for Splinter Cell, I was among the lowest scores on gamerankings. Others gave it lower than the "75%" I gave it, according to gamerankings.

I was insulted and ridiculed for the reasoning behind my review and score, despite the fact that I called it a well-crafted and conceptually strong game. I just don't think it worked out well in execution because of the game's linearity, which many (including littledoc) argued against.

Several years later, Ubisoft Montreal publicly states it believe the first game was too linear and relied too much on trial-and-error gameplay, and thus designed its spiritual follow-up "Chaos Theory" with those criticisms in mind.

I review Chaos Theory, and gave it a 9.5 I believe. Now I'm not giving myself any credit for the improvements made in the game. But I think looking back, the observations I made were not far off from what the developers thought. Yet barely a review from the mainstream press pointed out its biggest flaw.

I did not give Splinter Cell 1 a 7.5 for lowness' sake, as some argued back then. I acted accordingly, and at least in that instance, I seemed to have acted somewhat fairly.

In others' defense, I think all of them act accordingly to the experience and opinion they take away from each game. Whether they're spot on or not is another thing. But their intentions, I believe, are true.

[Gene Park]

Originally Posted by random_zombie

Meh. His discussion of the pertinence of San Andreas versus Bully kind of, at least for me, puts the credibility of the review down..

Is it wrong to compare San Andreas to Bully, especially since they come from the same developer? Is it unreasonable to stack Pixar's "Cars" up against "Finding Nemo?"

You give little reasoning behind why you disliked Brad's review besides this, and stating that it's low for lowness' sake.

Now if you disagree with him, that might be another thing. I haven't played Bully. I wanted to buy it. But I felt his review was written well enough with some reasonable arguments for me to be turned off to the game for now.

[Brad Gallaway]

Hey guys.

First off, Gene… you need to get back into writing reviews ASAP. ‘Nuff said.

About Bully… I fully expected that my low score would raise a few eyebrows, especially considering that the game garners near-universal praise on pretty much the entire Internet. However, to Zombie (or anyone else), if you disagree with my review, I’m very open to hearing why you think I’m off the mark for any reason besides simply giving it a low number. I know that we quibble about scores, but here at GC, we are still generally sticking to the concept that a 5 is “average”—not terrible, not outstanding. By that criteria, 6.5 is better than average and could probably be taken to represent a “safe purchase” for people who are fans of the genre.

On the topic of sequelitis… I do agree that it’s a plague on the industry from a critical standpoint, but as I mentioned at the tail end of the review, I am sympathetic and cognizant of the fact that certain companies may need a larger return on their investment in order to stay in business and be able to bring us the revolutionary experiences that we crave. As many developers have said, they turn out the craptastic movie tie-in or focus-group piece of trash in order to earn enough money to create the game they really want to create.

I have a great deal of respect for Rockstar and I also have a great deal of respect for GTA and San Andreas. Their relevance is not lost on me, and I’m completely all right with Rockstar crafting a one-off experience that does not push boundaries for the sake of increasing their corporate coffers. That’s exactly what they’ve done with Bully, IMO, and there’s nothing wrong with that, especially since their “average” product is a lot better than many of their competitors. That said, they should fully expect review scores which reflect their effort, and in the case of Bully, I believe that a 6.5 is highly appropriate.

It’s not a bad game by any means, but it’s certainly not a new experience for anyone who has ever played any of the GTA games, and it’s not nearly polished enough to be a showpiece title. Does this mean it’s bad? No, not at all… it’s just not the kind of top-tier experience that most of the other scores it’s earned would seem to indicate.

[David Stone]

Just to chime in on the "low mark" bit, I gave New Super Mario Bros. a 7. I think all of TWO people game me a tongue-lashing. Does Rockstar really have that much cache to the point that someone giving a Mario game a 7 (admittedly, this means that the game is definitely above average and a "safe purchase" as was put forth) barely registers, but a Rockstar game is suddenly a huge deal?

This isn't meant as a "why didn't anyone comment" thing, it's an interesting view of both how the industry landscape has changed, and how incredibly stupid and skewed gaming scores are.

(This definitely is related to the "Wii Zelda gets 8.8" debate as well. Who the hell cares what the score is? Reading the review gives much more insight - doubly so in Gene's example.)

[random_zombie]

Originally Posted by gene_peace

Sequelitis is exactly what it sounds like it is: A fuckin' disease that is plaguing this industry. I'm not saying sequels that are more or less similar to their predecessors should be eradicated, but that the industry leans on successful formulas way too often.

How is it different than panning your run-of-the-mill Hollywood story, or bashing a movie for copping out for a Hollywood ending?

If a game is crafted well, like for example Twilight Princess, then the game should be commended accordingly.

Of course, we can always continue to ask: What if Twilight Princess came out before OoT?

Then duh, TP would clearly be the better game. But unfortunately, that's not the case.

If OoT came out after TP, then OoT may be considered the worst of the two (although I might argue the story had more heart in OoT. This still holds true after replaying OoT for a few hours recently after I played TP).

But just because a game makes slight improvements to a formula doesn't automatically make it better. It's up to people to decide whether those marginal (or vast) differences contribute to the overall formula, upend the "tea table" (as Iwata puts it) or adds little.

As long as the game doesn't overall worsen the quality of the game or the formula, then I don't believe the game should be punished too much. For example, I would never think about giving TP a 6.5. That would be, IMO, making a low score for lowness' sake. I'd instead give it, as a handful of other sites have, an 8.5 or 9.0 instead. I'm not going to give it a 10 based soley on the fact that OoT and Wind Waker before it received similar scores.

Okay, Gene. You got me. Well said. And I agree completely with the bolded.

But you do have to admit that some would in actuality make a low score for lowness' sake. And I (mistakenly?) sometimes see that here is all.

[random_zombie]

Originally Posted by gene_peace

As for this, I don't think any of the critics give low scores just for the sake of low scores. You give the critics too little credit for the amount of thought they put into the score.

again, it just seems slightly eerie to me that, in fact and over the years, i've consistently seen a GC score at the bottom of the scorechart at both metacritic and gamerankings. i honestly do wonder if "internet hype" does weigh down on GC critics to be "different," not only in style but also in the score. i mean: having the lowest score for a game in a database will ultimately lead to clicked hits for GC.

ETA: forgive my spelling errors.

[Gene Park]

Originally Posted by random_zombie

again, it just seems slightly eerie to me that, in fact and over the years, i've consistently seen a GC score at the bottom of the scorechart at both metacritic and gamerankings. i honestly do wonder if "internet hype" does weigh down on GC critics do be "different," not only in style but also in the score. i mean: having the lowest score for a game in a database will ultimately need to clicked hits for GC.

It may or may not. I don't know, and perhaps I shouldn't be speaking for the critics. I'm just giving them the good faith and benefit of the doubt that they wouldn't do that.

And again, we're getting into the discussion of what these numbers mean. We've stated time and time again that 5.0 means average. I remember defending a 6.0 or 6.5 rating for Enter the Matrix, and being told that I should take a stick outta my ass. That is, until I explained the 5.0 threshold. Then things made a little more sense.

[random_zombie]

bass: i actually disagreed, also, with your NSMB (and a lot of you here, apparently) assessment. after reading the hate here, when i actually got around to finishing it i was very pleasantly surprised.

as for scores versus the meat of a review: yes, i agree. but like i stated above, scores *do* lead to increased or decreased web traffic at *large*. i merely wonder if that fact comes into the critique of any given reviewer at hand, be it conscious or not. i maybe naively think that it does.

brad: thanks for your response. i understand your sentiment. i guess it boils down to, that, eh, preference is preference. see: i understood and appreciated the quality of the GTA titles. that said, i could never get into them on a long-term basis. bully was actually the first rockstar game i, personally, well, really, really liked. so: let's say i don't have years and years of experience with GTA to qualify or negate my reaction to bully... would i, as a critic, rate it higher or lower?

[miscellaneous]

Supermario Sunshine would be a great game if the camera weren't so shite.