Bully joined my PS2 collection in early March thanks to an unwanted birthday. Due to a fascination with Final Fantasy 12, a borrowed copy of God of War and now Freedom Fighters, it had the potential to go un-played for quite some time, but I'm happy (so far) that I tore off the plastic wrapping.

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Everything that Rockstar touches isn't gold and while I love the GTA series, they've done alot to bring unwanted heat to gaming and seem to have persistent issues with some gameplay and quality within their games. That being said, they're games are still flippin' great and Bully is quickly finding a place in my heart besides Psychonauts, Shadow of the Colossus, and Kingdom Hearts II. There is alot of character, personality and production that went into this game and it's a shame to see it go unnoticed.

Rockstar decided to stray away from the completely tactless humor, boosted the graphics and shrunk the explorable world into something that is much more, personal. All your schoolmates have names and each has a relatively distinct personality. Sure you have generic looking Jock 1 and Greaser 2, but there is only one of each, they have a look to themselves and I find myself going "Oh crap, there's Bif again" just as one might were they living on campus and in town.

The story is a little quirky at times, but has so far made me L-O-L enough times to set it apart from most titles I've played. The dialogue is interesting and the characters are all varied in their personalities outside of their intended stereotype giving them life you rarely find outside of a well made RPG. Jimmy Hopkins is a character for the ages whom is a believable bad boy, but never too over the top. He's a selfish jerk, but still has compassion, just as a boy his age would.

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Due to the fact this post is far longer than anyone will ever care to read, I'll wrap up. The music is wonderful, very atmospheric and original when it could've been some generic rock or other nonsense for the mainstream masses. The colors are vivid and spot on for the setting. Extra missions and collecting are in place, but never excessive and each accessible, a small glint on objects to attract your attention doesn't hurt either.

Bully is quickly becoming a truly great game and welcome addition to my library.

Ganon's Monologue is a short animated flash film I made back in 2003 for Newgrounds.com. If you like it, vote me a fiver.



It features word for word Ganon's speech before Link and his final battle in the Wind Waker. I was surprised at the depth and emotion that was put into it. If you were ignorant enough to be turned off by the cel shaded look or simply didn't finish it you'd know that Ganon doesn't spout some generic, cliched nonsense about how he'll "Beat Link" or "Lay the smack down". It's what sold me on the true quality of the Wind Waker.



The audio is in Korean (I thought it was Japanese) when I made it, but it gives it some flair, even if when translated...it's not even close to what is being said. Few should notice and to those that do, I apologize. It's not the best, but I tried to mimic the artwork style as best I could, not bad for a first attempt at flash. I really would like to go back and animate that seagull..oh well.

Yes, the moon from Majora's Mask makes a cameo. The runtime is a little over a minute and took about a month of on and off work to complete.

4 of my submitted banners were picked to be on Gamespot officially. They can be found as follows:

Sol-Feace    (SCD)
Sol-Deace    (GEN)
El Viento      (GEN)
Street Smart (GEN, ARC)
Rampage      (NES)

I was a little surprised a few more of my 38 submissions weren't accepted, so I'll have to see what I can do to change, fix, improve the ones I have in hopes of getting them posted.

Check out my Album to see for yourself. I make no claims to being an artist in Photoshop, but with limited resources I thought a few more should have made it. No hard feelings.

I picked up Steambot Chronicles a few weeks back thanks to such interesting gameplay mechanics as playing various instruments, free roaming world, non-linear storyline and the ability to customize your mech. As I read in another player review, I really did want to love that game. It had a lot of great ideas, but for everyone there were a dozen annoyances in the mechanics that crippled it.

I didn't hate the game, but I sure ain't gonna be screaming in Time Square for people to go out and buy it. It took but a few days to beat it, various endings which is nice...but you can achieve each one by simply saving right before the final battle and changing only a few minor decisions.

I'm sad to say the game is forgettable as I was totally into the atmosphere at the start, but it quickly tapered off. The game is much more linear than they let on with a handful of sidequests you can tackle at any time that don't have very promising rewards besides a new license plate.

Perhaps I'll give it another shot one day, but for a game that had so much potential, it left me wanting much much more.

This is why I game, thanks to titles like Beyond Good and Evil. While touted as being short, that is perhaps it's only downside. If you enjoy action adventure games, you really must pick up BG&E. It can be found everywhere for no more than $9.99.

It's a shame this game wasn't played by more people as it is full of style, atmosphere, character, flavor and most of all fun. The game begins and you're left asking what the hell is going on, but it doesn't ake long for the story to be filled in through fully voiced, animated characters. The game is complete and solid from controls to game devices.

It may sound lame to feel so adamantly about nothing more than just a video game, but likes movies and books, it is a story telling device meant to entertain..the only difference is the addition of interaction. Talk about being immersed in the story.

A few years back I picked up the point and click adventure, The Longest Journey and was generally entertained by it. When I heard of the sequel and good reviews at least from Gamespot, I went out and picked up a week ago...I fear I may be regretting my loss of $40.

I enjoy the point and click adventure, but Dreamfall has been turned into a 3D adventure game that fights you to play it every step of the way. There is really no more pointing and clicking, which was an easy interface for people to get into..why they felt the need to remove the mouse pointer is a mystery to me.

You can now right click and scan rooms to see what you can interact with, or as you pass something it gets a box around it, so basically it becomes a chore to interact with the world around you.

The addition of battle has been added, you click mouse buttons for light and hard attacks...it's clunky at best, stupid at worst.

Otherwise the story is cool, the environments are pretty nice (if you can get the camera to work) but there doesn't seem to be very much puzzle solving so far, just a bunch of chatting. Oh well, we'll see how it goes.