2000 AD Online Forum

Though Rockstar Games hasn't made it clear wether this game has been released or even finished yet. It must be damn close to it.

On the Wikipedia entry for Rockstar's latest project.
There's a full synopsis, a run down on the main characters ( There are alot of main characters) and the cliques that exist with the school faculty that are very well known throughout most of the educated world.

Funnny thing is, that in reading up on these Cliques. I found it odd how well established these classicly stereotyped groups are.

The Nerds, The Bullies, The Preppies, The Jocks, The Outcasts, The Greasers, The Prefects, all have their own Clique uniforms. ( Hence the name of this thread topic.) So, you can recoginise them on street.

Thats alittle odd, I didn't think Bullies would really have their own uniform ( A white dress shirt, never tucked in.). Really Anyone of the other stero types could be bullies also. In fact any one of the other stero types could be any other of the other sterotypes.

In my own school days, nothing was so easily defined. Though, The kids that played chess and the kids that play sport at lunch time would still do their own thing. These two main gruops would still mix it up pretty much the rest of the time. Though the clique groups would be more clearly defined as people from different neighbour hoods areas.

The clique groups that were more obivious were known to each other through locality, and also ethicity and still haveing many of varying interests within those groups. You could almost call it a caste system within each group. I think this type of devercity works better than than what is shown in this game.

Despite this type over dependency I still think this game sounds cool and way ahead on the market for it's still a original idea.  

Link: RockStar's BULLY

It's already out Thrillseeker- my kids have it, and it's fucking great fun kicking the shit out of the prefects! Soon I shall tire of the senseless violence and start to play the actual game properly!

I really like the sound of this game, all PC reservations aside.  Even my better half, who spends her days peering out at classrooms full of little oiks, quite fancies it, despite her ladylike protests. The 'controversy' (read: airtime and column inches successully filled) appears to be aimed at the same group that warned me mam not to let us watch 'Grange Hill'.  Methinks these folks have carefully edited memories of their schooldays, or at least ever look behind them form their perch in the front row.  

OT:  We had a marvellous young teacher, a hulking 6' 3" skinhead,  who used to spend his breaks actively hunting bullies in the dark corners of the scool and scaring the living shite out of them.  Of course one day he actually thumped one particularly loathesome gargoyle who was beating the crap out of a wee First Year in a deserted classroom, and was fired.  In hindsight, I know he was totally out of order, but by God we loved him for it.

 

"In hindsight, I know he was totally out of order, but by God we loved him for it. "

Well, yes ... this is the problem with school bullies. All the stuff you know in your head is right goes out of the window, because these fuckers only understand and respect violence.

I was plagued by three of these cunts for the first four years of my time at comprehensive. One or other (and sometimes more than one) of these bastards would beat me up literally every day.

At some point in the fourth year, I snapped and punched one of them in the face. He beat the crap out of me, but after that they all left me alone.

Of course, all they did was go and find someone else to bully, and of course, I did nothing to stand up for that poor fucker.

I saw one of them a couple of years ago in the pub when I returned to my home town one Christmas, and he seemed genuinely perplexed as to why I was so hostile towards him.

Sorry, mate, I know it was twenty years ago, but do you really think you forget being punched unconscious? Being spat on? Being humiliated on a daily basis for four years?

Shooting's too fucking good for them.

Jim

In reality, the game has you defending the the nerds and those who are picked on- it's really the only way to progress in the game. Although that said, you can just thump anyone!

Jim's right about bullies only understanding violence. For ages I used self-deprecation and such like to avoid the worst excesses, but there was one particular guy who it seemed to make hate me more. One day after PE he was throwing football boots at me, til I flipped out and smashed him in the face with the metal studded sole. After that people left me alone because they thought I was a psycho. Escalation of violence really worked for me that time.
After leaving school, dressing in raggedy clothes and having purple hair made me a target again. Til I flipped out on some wanker and he ended up with 12 stitches holding his face together 2wks before his wedding. In a small town, such things keep people away. I very nearly went to jail for it, though. If I hadn't have had witnesses for 'self defence' I would have been inside on a 'serious assault' charge. but I'm not a violent person at all, and would much rather leg it at the first opportunity.

Yup, Bully - or Canis Canem Edit as it's been retitled for the Euro market - is surprisingly good. It's very derivative of the now-classic GTA format (unsurprising, given its pedigree) but it's executed with a lot of charm & attention to detail, and in putting you in the (school) shoes of a pretty sympathetic character & rewarding you for protecting classmates from bullies it goes a long way toward defusing the criticism that's been slung its way.

I'm still not entirely comfortable with the content. If you actually stop to think about what you're doing in-game & the manner in which it's presented, there is something a little unsettling - imagine Scum played for laughs & you might have an idea of why I find it slightly dubious.

It's certainly an interesting game, and the opening gameplay sequence that asks the player to enter an unfamiliar school & make their way to the head's office, all the while walking past groups of children talking about the "new boy" or getting jeered at by jocks, is a strangely authentic experience.  

"Sorry, mate, I know it was twenty years ago, but do you really think you forget being punched unconscious? Being spat on? Being humiliated on a daily basis for four years?"

Let it go, Jim.

I know that's easier to say rather than do, but you can't dwell on these things, because ultimately it's only going to be harmful to yourself (and like you say, the guys involved don't even seem to remember the incidents, which shows how much importance they placed upon it). For your own mental and physical wellbeing, you've got to leave these things in the past - you've changed, and so have your former tormentors. Some of my best friends now are people who treated me like utter shit at school, but then they were treated like crap by others too. That's the nature of violence; it goes round in circles, and ultimately you're better off not giving in to it, because that's never the way to win.

That said, there was this guy in our class who used to punch people in the arm as hard as he could during every single class. For two years. Anyway, this stopped after I knocked him unconscious with a wooden stool in the science block.

I don't think Jim's holding a grudge for the violence itself, but rather the idea that a great many people who engage in bullying when younger are encouraged by society to look upon it all as 'growing pains' that weren't their fault, and go into adulthood without any remorse for what they did.  People who commit acts of abuse constantly use the defence that they were subjected to it themselves and as such see it as a valid form of emotional or social expression, which is just bullshit.  If, as an adult, you understand what you did was wrong, you should be apologetic, not brushing off the feelings of those you abused as a childish grudge, because that's basically saying you were right to do it in the first place.
If I hear an apology for being fucked about by someone, then it's forgotten about - if not, then it's "fuck you and have a nice life".

treated me like utter shit at school

Now there's a *massive* difference between being treated like utter shit and being bullied. From your post, you weren't bullied, as you'd have actually used the word if you'd had. Being bullied goes far deeper than people who haven't experienced it can ever realise. I was bullied for years, purely for having long hair(!) I survived and had plenty of friends nonetheless (although at other schools). There are people I went to school with that I'd still seriously like to see floating face-down in a river with their throats slit even now, nearly 20 years on. Even though it doesn't rule most victims' lives into adulthood (including me), it's fucking impossible to just "let it go" when you've suffered years of constant physical and mental cruelty as a kid.

Slight rant over. Carry on.

"There are people I went to school with that I'd still seriously like to see floating face-down in a river with their throats slit even now, nearly 20 years on"

Heh ... I know that feeling!

Of my three tormentors, I don't any particularly festering ill-will towards two of them, because they were remarkably stupid. Their dead-end small-town council estate lives are more than punishment enough.

The other one, though ... he was clever, and quite gifted. And he hated me for no reason I could ever work out. Although he wasn't averse to giving me a good kicking, he liked his bullying psychological as well.

I was shy and very nerdy back then, and I didn't make friends easily, and he systematically drove wedges between me and my friends, mocked and belittled me, and told lies about me to the point where most other kids would barely even speak to me.

It's an old wound, and it doesn't trouble me if I don't think about it, but, to this day, if the opportunity presented itself to do that bastard an ill turn, I'd fuck him over like a shot and smile while I was doing it.

Jim

I think adults respond differently to bullying compared to how they would have when they were kids.

Like you you can still be beaten up or even annoyed the same way you were when you were at school, but as a adult you can pychologically bullied by co-workers, your boss, your former friends, other people you have stay in contact with evryday and even family.

I too had my fair share of bullying and in turn fighting. Funny thing is with the fighting. I guess I never hit hard enough, and so the bullying would continue.

Anyway, becuase of my experiuences at school and in the work place I feel uncomfortable when I am forced to come into contact with people right now.

There was a guy at my school who was a bully & a shit to pretty much everyone. Never actually bullied me but we had the odd confrontation. Him & his group were generally best avoided.

I last saw him about a year ago, he was homeless & was begging for bus fare to get from Yate to Bath, about ten miles. I watched him going from person to person asking for money. He approached me, recognized me, changed his mind & walked away.

I wish I could say I felt sorry for him but I didn't.

"Now there's a *massive* difference between being treated like utter shit and being bullied. From your post, you weren't bullied, as you'd have actually used the word if you'd had. Being bullied goes far deeper than people who haven't experienced it can ever realise. I was bullied for years, purely for having long hair(!) I survived and had plenty of friends nonetheless (although at other schools). There are people I went to school with that I'd still seriously like to see floating face-down in a river with their throats slit even now, nearly 20 years on. Even though it doesn't rule most victims' lives into adulthood (including me), it's fucking impossible to just "let it go" when you've suffered years of constant physical and mental cruelty as a kid."

Well, thanks for saying that those five or more years of hell I went through during secondary school were little more than a bit of gentle ribbing - sorry didn't realise that this was a fucking misery contest. Glad to hear that being smacked about and spat on every day walking to and from school was just a fucking picnic, and that an entire school population refusing to talk to you and not having one single friend to confide in for six months is just bog-standard behaviour. Especially since the only time a teacher put a stop to me getting my arse kicked, it lead to the attackers claiming that they did it because I was being 'racist', and I got suspended and had to apologise to THEM.

Did you think that maybe - just fucking maybe - the reason that I didn't go into specific detail was because I didn't actually want to dredge all that shit up again, because I'd liked to have thought that I'd been able to move on with my life and leave all the crap behind?

Violence is NEVER the answer - I've learned that over time, and I've made plenty of mistakes because of it that I now deeply regret. Doesn't mean that I'm not held responsible - and I DO believe in personal accountability - but unless you understand WHY people do what they do, the cycle just continues regardless. And the truth is, you get used to being miserable - being sorry for yourself is a readily familiar state of mind, and I think it ends up being a psychological crutch, and ultimately if you can't be rational and move away from it, then it ends up controling and crippling you emotionally.

Sorry, I realise I'm coming across like a complete prick - and it's a fair assessment - but I really can't put into words the crap that post has brought up for me.

One of the bullys at my school was killed when he hid in a box in the middle of the road as a drunken dare. Naturally it was hit by a car and frankly this loss to the gene pool won't be missed.

Not a bullying tale but I did have a primary school fight with Neil Primrose who later became the drummer in Travis. I won der if I'll merit a mention in his autobioraphy!

As for moving, on a good grudge is an excellent motivational tool.

Well, thanks for saying that those five or more years of hell I went through during secondary school were little more than a bit of gentle ribbing - sorry didn't realise that this was a fucking misery contest.

Get a fucking grip, Ed. I never said anything of the fucking sort.

Did you think that maybe - just fucking maybe - the reason that I didn't go into specific detail was because I didn't actually want to dredge all that shit up again,

No. Because I'm not a fucking mind reader. The almost glib attitude of your previous post of just "let it go" really came across like you weren't very understanding of the effect it has on people. How was I meant to know what you'd gone through when what you'd described was what 99.9% of *all* schoolkids go through? You were bullied, you survived it, you don't let it rule your life...join the club.

Violence is NEVER the answer

Of *course* it is! If some pissed-up twat punches you for no reason in the town one day, what are you going to do? Say something witty? Ignore them and turn the other cheek (so he can reach for that side as well)? Cry? Show him a picture of a kitten? Sell him a small press comic?

No. You hit the cunt back, a darned sight harder than he hit you. I'd rather fight back, risk a kicking and keep my fucking dignity than be a doormat wuss who won't hit back.

I tried both attitudes, and i have to say, I also would rather hit back twice as hard. It is unfortnate that violence has to be the answer, but it very often is. Some people are total fucking animals and I don't much care about their reasons for victimising.
One of my kids was being bullied really badly at school by one guy and he wouldn't grass and wouldn't hit back. It was really starting to affect him and he wouldn't let us go to the school about it. Eventually, I spoke to him about it away from his mum and just told him he had three choices- grass, live with it, or give the cunt such a fucking doing he would think twice. He told me the guy would batter him stupid. I told him to use his bag or anything he could get his hands on- anything to hurt the bastard. One day the arsehole pissed in a bottle and emptied it over our kid. He did nothing then, but by the time break was over he was so riled about it, that he walked into class picked up a chair and smashed it over the guys head- splitting it open. He got into shit for it from the school, but it all came out what had been happening and he got off with a detention. The guy never went near him again. Nor has anyone else. If the little sack of shit had been over 16 I would have hunted the little cockweasel down and broke his face myself. It's a shitty violent world.

Woah, One fukcing minute!

Bullying . hmm. When a congregation of cells larger than an amount of cells takes advantage of another.

I've had to undergo this on this and the review board. With accusations of me being a "baiter" and a "troll" when it was my lack of gramma that was picked upon and made to seem inferior than others because there is a likkle magic in me.

Peopole cannot stand anything different or anything their egos can get a grip with. We are all the same likkle bastards. You given me the same treatment and I am sure I have done the same to others.

Ostrecised because you were different does not give you the excuse to give shit to me because I am a little different.

You are no fucking angels and if some one says "werll leave then,"
I'm going to find you at a comic con and nut you in the fucking nose because cunts like that deserve it. All my life, having to listen to inocuous halfwits who stab every fucker in the back to get ahead and feel superior in the "modern society".

Well fuck 'em, Time and again I bounced back and time and again I will have to.

So DON'T expect any sympathy from me and I don't from you. You know its amazing when people actually give you a chance and see what you can achieve.

Its just that most fuckers don't.

Here endeth the rant.

BTW. Really looking forward to kicking some bully's cuntass, in this game.



 

Me?
I don't think I've told anyone to piss off here.

No Dog. Not you. You happened to get in your post as I was editing.

Silly.They know who they are.May I add; bullies in general?

Shut the fuck up an' give me yer beer money 'fore I twat yer. ;-)

Aheheh....  }:|

I'm neither built for fighting or very good at it, but once when I was having the crap beaten out of me I plucked up the courage, swung my arm up in an instinctual, karate-kid kind of move and absolutely twatted... the one decent guy who'd moved in to stop all the others picking on me.  Breaking his glasses and not doing his nose much good either.  


Oops.

If some pissed-up twat punches you for no reason in the town one day, what are you going to do? Say something witty? Ignore them and turn the other cheek (so he can reach for that side as well)? Cry?

'Scuse the double post, but I only just saw this.  I'd cry.  In fact, I'd bawl.  It usually works wonders, going limp and screaming for mercy.  Last time I was on the receiving end of physical violence, I found that grovelling on the floor stopped the beating pretty effectively, too.  Considering he'd kickboxed me in the head, trying to punch him wouldn't have got me very far, presuming that an ICU was reasonably close by.

Dudley?

"Of *course* it is! If some pissed-up twat punches you for no reason in the town one day, what are you going to do?"

The last time that happened to me, I didn't do anything. It was so totally out of the blue that I just couldn't believe it.

Luckily, the pissed-up twat's mates all jumped on him, otherwise I think I'd have had a right pasting!

Cheers

Jim

The school bully expereince is definitely different to the random street violence experience (at lewst in this corner of the world you are relatively unlikely to be stabbed in school).  My projected advice to my young'un (currently 5 1/2 months, but hey...), based on my own experience:  Hit back, as hard as you possibly can.  I was always taught that you did NOT hit people, no matter what, so like a good mummy's nerd I didn't.  

As a result, there was one massive bloke in my class who used to regularly shove me around, steal my lunchmoney, play endless games of keepaway with his underlings and chant my name relentlessly under his breath in class while running his finger across his throat.  The usual.  I have no idea why - he used to assert that I was 'rich' (THE worst insult in '70's Ireland!), despite his parents having a holiday home in Connemara, a boat on the Shannon and an annual skiing holiday - versus my family's mildewy tent.  Of course, this was a theme rapidily picked up by others, and eventually I took to ding in store cupboards to avoid classes, inventing illnesses to avoid sport ( the most dangerous of all situations - unsupervised boys in communal changing rooms, great), and finally mitching off school for days at a time.

Anyway, from the day I eventually totally snapped (no idea why), stopped chasing my airborne sportsgear and instead repeaedly beat his curly head against the coat racks, and naturally got my arse sorely kicked by his mates, he never so much as looked at me again. Bizarrely, we ended up getting on quite well a few years later - I never did find out what his issue was.  All I could think about at the time was:  why didn't I just hit him on DAY ONE?  So I'm telling my boy:  get stuck right in.  

   

I'm a fan of video games, a fan of Rockstar and a fan of the free roaming genre but I still will not buy this game because...

1. it dredges up too many bad memories when I was being bullied at school and

2. I hate, loathe and despise bullies. Period.

Bullies psychologically damage people. Sometimes people, like myself, cannot get over it because it's been pulverised into your subconscious.

When I was twenty, I saw someone who bullied me at school. I STILL froze. That's how much fear those fuckers beat into me. I'd like to think if I saw him now I would put a brick through his skull but what would that achieve?

How appropriate - it's anti-bullying week next week. Interesting article in the Observer by goalkeeper David James about bullying. Link below - worth a read.

Never really got bullied per se, but still had to watch myself around the looneys at my school. Was surprised some years later when a guy in my class said I used to bully him. That shocked me a little. I never punched or battered him, just took the piss a bit and had a bit of banter. But I took the piss out of everybody, so it surprised me that he saw it as bullying. Still, apologised to him.

And anyway, my mate has got Canis Canem Edit and he says it's brilliant.

Link: David James speaks

As an aside-

Ade, I'm about halfway that at the moment ;)

It's been a while since I picked it up last but with the miracle that is Fuse (Free Unix Spectrum Emulator) I can make TZX snapshots of games and dip in and out when I want.

Tau Ceti and Cobra are still as addictive now as they were twenty(?) years ago.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/

Link: World Of Spectrum

You have to whack a master to hit the high shields....

Generally, I would feel too much resentment to wards anybody thast's severely bullied me directly in the past to be good friends with them.

Onm the flip side.

Of course, unles you have retaliated in any way, the bully woulnd't be harbouring any grudges toward that person now would they?

It's okay for them, isn't it.

The TV ads seem to go out of their way to portray the lead as a necessary evil, is this the case in the game.

I was bullied at school for generally being loud and annoying, I very suddenly became quite introverted at age 14 without realising it. It had virtually died out by the time I did my GCSE's but I still felt uneasy around my tormenters, and probably still would if I spent more than 5 minutes in their company.

On the flip side, I'm ashamed to say that I used to bully one of my friends because he was universally acknowledged as a geek. I wasn't the only one doing it in my group, but this causes me far more trauma then the time someone pretended to hold a gun to my back and forced me to hold my hands up in front of everyone.

hmm.

I've been on the receiving end of bullying- as have, I would imagine, a fair few here.

I've always raised my kids with the attitude that you do not start fights and if you see bullying, tell the teacher.

Two weeks ago Micro-bolt (7) got into trouble for a fight at school. His reason- one of his mates was being picked by a gang and when he told them to stop they started on him. So he punched the nearest one in the face. He was given two days in 'the zone' (Not allowed out of the 'D' on the playground football pitch) and then it was all over.

I know that fighting is not big or clever, but my lad got a box of Heroclix for being a good friend from me for that.

Bolt-01

"I know that fighting is not big or clever, but my lad got a box of Heroclix for being a good friend from me for that. "

You're my kind of Dad, Bolt!  

Krust brings up some very disturbing memories for me here.  While I only really suffered from one bully in school, a situation which violence on my part did solve, I was also at one time a bully.  Or rather, I was a bully's henchman, as if that was somehow a lesser crime.  I had a very clever, very likeable 'friend' in First Yea in secondary school, who had been friends in primary school with an overweight and fankly pretty obnoxious kid (weren't we all?), whom he now no longer needed.

Wanting to distance himself from his uncool past, he encouraged myself and others to pick on and mercilessly slag this poor sod, also ostensibly my friend - but he never really got directly involved himself (too damn smart).  There was no physical abuse involved (as if that made it better), but I can't deny that we bullied this guy, reducing him to tears on several occasions, and causing him to miss days of school (in much the same way as I would do myself a year-or-so later) for no other reason than my cool 'friend' made it clear that we should. Sure weren't we al friends, and wasn't it all just fun.  Anyway, he was fat, and thus fair game.  

This went on for maybe a year, and the nadir (for me) was when I was prevailed upon not to attend the victim's Bar Mitzvah, an invitation that even then I knew was a huge honour and a rare experience in he virtual mono-culture like the south of Ireland was then.  Nobody else from our school went.   It's something I've spent the last 25 years regretting.

I stopped picking on him shortly after that, but others continued, he got fatter and more miserable, and I certainly didn't stand up to them.  Years later I tried to apologise, but I don't think I got through.  Who can blame him fro not wanting to listen.  It actually still makes my gut clench with well-deserved panicky guilt to think of it at all.

And why did I do all this?  Because a popular smart guy who I wanted to like me asked me to.  And where is this 'friend' now?  Haven't seen him in 20 years.  And did he come to my aid when I was being bullied a few years later?  What do you think.  What goes around...

"One of the bullys at my school was killed when he hid in a box in the middle of the road as a drunken dare. Naturally it was hit by a car and frankly this loss to the gene pool won't be missed."

Though to be fair, you shouldn't really have told him to hide in the box.













Or driven the car.

ADE

I had some similar experiences at school, but nothing so severe as many of the posters here.

But I do recall somebody stealing my prog one time. He ran off laughing, saying he wanted to read "Doctor Dredd." The bastard!

Seriously, I feel very bad for those of you who are still scarred by such experiences. I think this thread should be used so they can talk about it if they want.
Let's be supportive and try to avoid any more arguments. The board's gotten a little tense lately and I think this is a good opportunity to be a bit more positive again.

- Trout

Fuck off fish-face, you bring your prog money to Gripper Button from now on!


Do I need the winky man?

Ok

;0)

Gripper Button

Fnarr fnarr

- Trout

I won't rise to your smutty chortling, but Gripper Stebson was a terrifying Grange Hill bully. Well until 'Bullet' Baxter got hold of him anyway.

I'm quite aware of who Gripper Stebson was. See the "age" thread for my vintage.

Now away and grip some buttons... ;-)

It's a game about Bullying. It's not big, it's not clever, it's trying to be controversial and therefore using this as a marketing vehicle to sell games and is a shit wet dream of some marketing/games exec.

IMHO it's wrong.

I was bullied, very badly that it has affected my life, albeit in a small way but also helped me in some way recognise this and use it as an emotional crutch to help me through life, but looking back i would really have liked to not to have been bullied.

My Co. does work with a charity that helps young people who suffer from bullying and knowing what children are faced with from their demonstrative peers during their formative years I really wish that this game was not released. It is wrong.

It's a game about Bullying

Is it? From what my mate says its a game about getting through school with a controversial title (in the states). Is GTA solely about car stealing? No, it also has much worse stuff in it, which is probably a bad example.

Too many people are making assumptions (including me) about the game without actually having played it. Let's not live life through the tabloids, eh?

to be fair though, if you call a game "bully", then you are kind of attracting those assumptions...

I saw it on ITV news - they announced it as if it were about bullying in the headline, then quietly slipped in that it was about defeating a bully.

Personally, if thimgs are anything like when I was a kid, the kids that played a lot of computer games at home were usually the geeks who did well at school while the bullies and hard-nuts the ones unable to keep themselves occupied in their own company, hanging round in the street and, well, playing football actually (ban this evil sport!)

Link: Gameplay

lol, i thought you were going to be talking about John Kerry, Mancow (see cowman thread) said he looked like one of those bullies from revenge of the nerds, or porkies, or one of any of those kinda films

I've played it a bit, and although there's the option of beating up random kids in the schoolyard, prefects or teachers will twat you about for doing so - acting like a bully comes with consequences.  That's probably quite unrealistic, though.
Bullies seem to be a seperate clique within the game, who slap you about and get took down a peg if they're seen doing so near prefects or teachers.  If anything, the game is more a simulator of a Dennis the Menace-type kid who's not necessarily bad, just mischievious.  Having said that, there's probably plenty to be read into the fact that he comes from a broken home and lacks a family in the conventional sense - I can see the Daily Mail reader in us all liking that bit of commentary.

Like I said, there are no crisp clear high school stereo types any more.