I've been playing Grand Theft Auto IV lately. Great game, across the board. My buddy Andy sent me the following link to this article which discusses why the GTA series has been so groundbreaking, among other things. I recommend reading it if you're a GTA fan and/or interested in the narratology of video games in general. It's also pretty damned funny.
As great as GTA is, however, my favorite Rockstar Games product has to be Bully. I'm playing it again, this time for the Xbox 360, and loving every minute of it. I got the soundtrack in the mail a couple days ago, and have spent more than a little spare time trying to track down something resembling a Bullworth Academy t-shirt. My Halloween costume this year will, if all goes well, involve someone sewing a Bullworth Academy crest onto a sweater for me (said sweater will then become a regular article of cold-weather clothing). The 360 version hasn't bugged out on me more than once, to my surprise, and while it's (thus far) not substantially different than its older PS2 ancestor, it's been very much worth buying again for the improved graphics and, well, just to play again. I'd much rather ride my bike or skate around Bullworth, tossing eggs at assholes and putting firecrackers in toilets, than committing vehicular manslaughter in San Andreas or Liberty City... but not always. There's no real comparison between the two games, in my opinion, as the tone of each is sufficiently unlike the other to nullify any "Bully=GTA with training wheels" comments. (Yeah, I know Bullworth Academy shows up tangentially in GTA IV, but I reckon you get my point.)
So yeah, two good games, two engrossing premises, two different overall moods, and yours truly gravitates towards the, ahem, "juvenile" one- unabashedly. Make of it what you will.
See you on campus, folks.
-DAS
Bullworth '06
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