Dog Eat Dog (New Game Part 2)

Now those of you reading this who know me from the GA forums will no doubt remember the discussion we had about one Canis Canem Edit, aka Bully, from Rockstar Games. Those same people are probably still choking at the idea that I actually bought this game after what I said. Yet I let those guys post comments if they want to ;)

As for the game itself, well I must say after only a couple of hours play, so far I'm really impressed. On the off chance you don't know jack about it, it's been developed for PS2, by the same team behind GTA, and on first impressions is GTA, but set in a reform school, and without the Uzis and Ho's; well I haven't found a Ho yet but this is Rockstar, so anything is possible. I won't bore you with the basic premise aside from that but I would recommend using this link for a bit more background info. You can go now, I'll wait.

*Talk show host style* Aaannnd we're back!

Let me take you back in time, to the days of the Speccy, and in particular a game called Skool Daze. Remember it? No?

You are Eric, a troublesome schoolboy, and your task is to steal your report card out of the school safe in the staff room so that you don't get into trouble! To do this, you must collect the combination letters for the safe and write them on a blackboard - not such an easy task seeing as one letter of the four letter combination is held by each of the teachers in the school. In order to get them to tell you their letter, you must make all of the shield scattered around the school flash by hitting them or firing your catapult at them. Once all the shields are flashing, knocking the teachers over with your catapult will cause them to tell you their letter of the combination. All except old Mr Creak, that is, who is so old he cannot be trusted to remember his letter. It has been hypnotically implanted in his mind and he will only remember it when he sees the number of the year that he was born!

Source

Ahhh the memories...........

Err, where was I? Oh yeah...

So, snap to today and the Canis Canem Edit (herein known as CCE). Whilst the story is nowhere near that of Skool Daze the idea of having free reign of what to do within the game is the same.

As soon as the intro sequence starts, it all screams Rockstar. Everything from the character models, to the environment; even though they are unique to CCE it all feels instantly familiar yet fresh at the same time. But it's also at this point you'll notice something else, the horrendous load times. I seemed to sit for ages waiting for the game to begin, yet it's when you do start exploring the world you understand why and doesn't matter anymore. It all streams directly and due to the close nature of the surroundings there isn't much distance pop-up that has plagued GTA.

First port of call is a trip to the Head, via his sycophantic secretary, after which you are generally free to go wherever you want. With classes to attend (which unlocks new skills and gadgets), full night/day cycle, missions to complete, characters to meet/greet/beat seven bells out of as you see fit, it is a great example of free-form gameplay.

Anybody picking this up who is used to the GTA control method will voerall feel comfy but with one exception. The right analogue stick still controls the floating camera (it's all in third person view) but doesn't control direction of movement of the character as well, it just looks around. Hard to explain but it's a subtle difference, one which I'm also glad to say is a temporary annoyance. Unless like me when I first booted the game up, you'd just been playing Splinter Cell on the 360 for a couple of hours, then picking up a PS2 pad is a complete head-fuck! I actually had to think about what buttons I was pressing!!

As a game it's what you would expect from Rockstar. Load up, get straight in, bold characters that are guranteed to bring out some kind of emotion either way, compelling story line and a wide variety of missions to complete and things to do. For anybody who has just got a PS2, or has had theirs for a while and found themselves not having reason to use it, this game is a bloody good reason! Or if you fancy reliving those school years, and all the social battery that comes with it, I couldn't recommend a better place to get you fix.

Oh, and as for the Daily Mail-type accusations and calls for bans, it's bollocks. Why don't these people actually try and find out about the game rather than believing the hype? I admit I was not a big fan of this game prior to it's release, sadly because I got caught up in the if, buts, and maybes of what it was all about instead of the actual truth. A bit of how it was marketed still rankles with me, but we should all have learnt by now, this is what Rockstar do.

Tomorrow I'll be taking a look at a new policy from the UK's largest video gaming chain, GAME. Or should that be end of one? After that, not sure what I'll be writing about, but hey I'm open to suggestions if you se anything you think I'd be interested in!