Canis Canem Edit

By Tom Bramwell Published 1 September, 2006

Rockstar takes us to school.

Bullying takes many forms. I've experienced lots myself. Name-calling was pretty bad. And having things flicked at me - especially those revolting spit balls. It persists throughout life, so you grow a thick skin. Which helps when, say, you're caught making a fairly innocuous piece of software by a gang of influential loudmouths who then band together and slag you off without bothering to see what it's like first.

That's what's happened to Canis Canem Edit, and, having now played it, it doesn't feel like Rockstar has a case to answer. Yes there are bullies, and yes they do nasty things to people, but if you can watch an episode of Grange Hill without bursting into tears then you can happily live with this.

Parents needn't worry either. Given the backlash (or, in this case, pre-lash), you'd expect Canis Canem Edit to be a groin-stamping, librarian-raping monstrosity designed to provoke. It's really not. Protagonist Jimmy Hopkins is far from mean-spirited. His actions are down to you, but you needn't fill the vacuum with hate. Indeed, you're encouraged not to - the game punishes the sorts of things groups like Bullying Online rightly deplore. Run around Bulworth Academy picking on people and not only will the headmaster assign you backbreaking labour - which is genuinely boring to do - and take away your toys, but nobody in the school will like you either.

The introductory sequence sets Jimmy up nicely, sprawled on the backseat of his step-dad's car as his parents prepare to dump him at Bulworth and go on a year-long honeymoon. A freckly chap with a caustic sense of humour, you probably won't immediately take to him - but you won't mind him either. He's no more or less unpleasant than any of Grand Theft Auto's toonified protagonists - and as a bonus he doesn't crawl along kerbs looking for hookers to knife.

'Canis Canem Edit' Screenshot 1

Hop out of the car and the set-up's immediately familiar. There's a mini-map in the top-right that allows you to navigate your way through the school and nearby town of Bulworth, visiting your common room, dorm, classrooms and other areas. Along with a health-bar, there's a trouble meter. Throw some punches or duck out of class and the prefects and teachers come after you.

You're quickly introduced to the rest - the simple combat system, defined as you're picked on by a group of older thugs, offers punches, kicks and grapple combos, with weapons available to cycle through using L2 and R2 as you acquire them. You can lock onto targets with L1 and fire slingshots and throw eggs, stink bombs and the like using R1, and there are also some melee weapons like cricket bats, but nothing shockingly violent. There are certainly no guns or knives, and the thwacking sound effects are more like hearty thumps than wince-making cracks. As you go you'll unlock finishing moves, too, and humiliations - Chinese burns, wedgies and the like - but you'll want to pick your fights. In fact, you're best leaving the game to do it for you throughout its 50 compulsory story missions; if you don't want to end up mowing lawns or shovelling snow, it's best to defend yourself rather than causing mischief.

After the initial fight, you're whisked off to the boys' common room, where the ambitious, smooth-talking Gary offers to be your pal. So you hang around there, with a drinks machine to pep up your health, a TV, poker table and arcade machine to unwind with, and settle into the daily cycle. Each day at Bulworth Jimmy wakes rejuvenated in his dorm, where he can also save and switch clothes, and then has to head off to class. Between classes, and during the period after school (and, if you're particularly adventurous, after curfew), Jimmy can take on story missions. The system's much like GTA's, except there's a clock in the top-left that helps you bear in mind where you need to be.

'Canis Canem Edit' Screenshot 2

Soon you're embroiled in your first proper mission, Defend Bucky, which involves helping out a geeky kid who went off to get some stuff for a science project and didn't come back. Naturally he's fallen foul of bullies, so you race to where he is on the mini-map and help defend him - all the while his health bar is depleting. Once you've sorted out the bullies ganging up on him, you escort him to pick up his work and then help him back out to the gate.

Doing so earns the respect of the nerd clique, and pisses off the bullies. There are five groups like the nerds and bullies in total. You also have the preppies, dropouts and jocks, and each has their own hangout spot and familiar attire. As you undertake missions you build up respect, which makes things more comfortable for you as you mingle. Eventually, they'll leave you be entirely.

You also earn a skateboard, which aids you in getting around. By tapping X you can speed up, while square brakes, and you quickly get into the fluid process of tossing the plank down in front of you and speeding away, slipping off it again with L2 or R2 when you need to ascend some stairs.

The missions in the game are split into a series of chapters - of which there'll be five or six in total, Rockstar tells me - and these take place over the span of one school year. The first chapter culminates in a battle with hardnut thicko Russell, who's been goaded by the treacherous Gary into taking you on. Defeating Russell involves dodging his attacks, which vary as he gets worked up, and striking back to whittle down his health. With that out of the way, you disavow Gary and help Russell up. There are loads of people at Bulworth who deserve a kicking, you tell him, but he's picking on the wrong ones. At this point, some more of Bulworth unlocks, too, giving you the chance to head out of school. Later you'll be able to head off to the carnival, beach or industrial district. The progression's very GTA-esque.

You're a student too, of course, so there's the clock to keep in mind. With two set periods to complete, before and after lunch, you'll need to head off to class when the bell goes, with several subjects to attend - chemistry, English, art, maths, gym and photography the ones mentioned. Each is set up as a mini-game, with five levels to work through during the term. Chemistry is a rhythm-response, for example, about bashing buttons as the corresponding symbols move through a Bunsen burner, while art is a sort of Snake clone where you need to move a pen from the top to the bottom of the screen without having the line you've drawn severed by a roving rubber.

Completing classes earns you new skills. Level 1 of chemistry allows you to create firecrackers with your chemistry set back in the dorm, while level 1 of art gives you a boost with the ladies, whom you can court by buying flowers, chocolates and so on, and chatting them up or even kissing them - providing they're into it. English will give you some more eloquent playground taunts. Interaction's a bit less dramatic than GTA's "ignore or punch"; here you can say something positive or negative. I don't know about you, but I always struggle to play the bad guy in this sort of game (I was rubbish at Knights of the Old Republic), so here I found myself looking after wayward youngsters and trying not to offend. Perhaps all this explains the spit-balls.

'Canis Canem Edit' Screenshot 3

You can skip class though. If you do, a truancy notice flashes up under the mini-map. You have a grace period of about 30 minutes to get to class once it's started, in case you simply forget, but after that the prefects, teachers and even cops - if you're out and about - will swoop down and escort you to where you're supposed to be.

Actually fighting prefects and bullying other students upsets the status quo, and unless you've built up the various cliques' respect you won't make many friends this way. You can leg it, with a GTA-style limited-sprint system, and hide in lockers to evade detection, but it's far from ideal. Better just to go about your business.

That business - sorting out bullies, defending yourself, collecting things from town for the soup-soiling cook and generally helping out - earns you a few dollars to spend. To this end the town's dotted with shops and boutiques, allowing you to buy the odd new sweatshirt or some flowers for the girls. Some missions require you to customise your appearance with a different top or a new haircut.

'Canis Canem Edit' Screenshot 4

Other missions I've tried include one called Panty Raid, where Jimmy happens upon a teacher coming out of a smut shop and agrees to go and steal some knickers for him. It sounds awful, but it's done very knowingly - and conveys the tone of the game neatly. Jimmy's incredibly savvy, agreeing to help the flapping teacher out and not to mention that he's seen him with a handful of porn magazines. The mission itself involves sneaking into the girls' dorm and dodging a teacher, whose angry stare is portrayed by a Metal Gear-style cone of vision on the mini-map radar.

On the whole it comes across very well. It's immediately playable, with some enjoyable systems tying it together and a variety of interesting mission types. Nothing ground-breaking, but nothing leg-breaking either. There's real humour to the script too, and the GTA staples of hidden side-missions and NPCs spouting amusing one-liners from just within earshot. After a spate of rather narrow-minded GTA clones, like Neversoft's GUN, it's as though Rockstar thought, "Well hey, if anybody's going to make a GTA clone and get it right, it ought to be us." The transformation seems fairly compelling.

On first impression, Canis Canem Edit isn't going to change the landscape of gaming, but equally important, for the people jumping up and down on its corpse (not even its corpse so much; it's more like they're stamping on Rockstar's womb), is that it's about as morally deficient as Ferris Bueller. I've been more appalled by Saved By The Bell. Whether or not the game can live up to this promising snapshot is a far more interesting debate than whether Rockstar's on a mission to profit off people's misery. On this evidence, it stands a good chance.

Canis Canem Edit is due out exclusively on PS2 this October.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (56) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • TwistidChimp #1 6 years ago

    Sounds absolutley ace :)

  • Bitkari #2 6 years ago

    Write out 1000 times:

    I must release cross-platform titles.

  • T4RG4 #3 6 years ago

    Dimitri

  • chupachups #4 6 years ago

    If the preview is accurate, this isn't a game about bullying at all, so why on earth did they choose the name "Bully" in the first place? (It would be like naming GTA "Kill Pedestrians", totally misleading.)

    Something like resurrecting the classic "Skool Daze" name would have been far more accurate and less provocative.

    It sounds like Rockstar's publicity department is the one to blame for courting controversy here.
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/06 @ 12:12

  • ilmaestro #5 6 years ago

    Hmm, sounds like a decent idea but although calling it 'Bully' was a very cheap way to easy publicity, I was actually more looking forward to controlling a sort of underground school mafia.

  • MrChuckles #6 6 years ago

    Haha...

    'there are also some melee weapons like cricket bats, but nothing shockingly violent'

    Yeah, kids smacking each other around the head with cricket bats isn't violent at all.

    Can anyone name any other games where you can beat children up with weapons?

    (Even Fable only allowed children in the region where you couldn't bring a weapon)

    And firing catapults at each other, awesome blinding real life actions.

    Glad i'm not a kid anymore.

  • El_MUERkO #7 6 years ago

    GTA: School, A murder simulator of the lowest rank, burn it, BURN IT!

  • Goban #8 6 years ago

    Sounds really really dull

  • foxy2006 #9 6 years ago

    hurry up and review Saints Row, i'm really considering a purchase today ...

  • CrunchinJelly #10 6 years ago

    What happened to the Xbox version?

  • Blerk #11 6 years ago

    Sounds alright. Might be one to check out once the price drops a bit.

  • seregrail7 #12 6 years ago

    Canis Canem Edit, is this the new name?

  • Blerk #13 6 years ago

    What happened to the Xbox version?

    Microsoft killed the Xbox in the meantime. :-)

  • alexg #14 6 years ago

    "Interaction's a bit less dramatic than GTA's "ignore or punch"; here you can say something positive or negative."

    What? You mean you can actually TALK to NPCs in the game instead of punching them (or running them over, shooting them, kicking them to death while they're on the ground etc.)?

    Less dramatic? I would say as a departure from the current game landscape that IS pretty dramatic.

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #15 6 years ago

    Saints Row review coming in a few hours

  • PearOfAnguish #16 6 years ago

    Haha...

    'there are also some melee weapons like cricket bats, but nothing shockingly violent'

    Yeah, kids smacking each other around the head with cricket bats isn't violent at all.

    Can anyone name any other games where you can beat children up with weapons?

    (Even Fable only allowed children in the region where you couldn't bring a weapon)

    And firing catapults at each other, awesome blinding real life actions.

    Glad i'm not a kid anymore.

    For someone named 'Mr Chuckles' you seem to be lacking in the sense of humour department.

  • Arrit #17 6 years ago

    Am I the only one who thinks the main character looks a bit like Wayne Rooney?

  • moggsy #18 6 years ago

    Saint's Row got a 6 in Edge. They didn't seem all that impressed.

  • Daryoon #19 6 years ago

    Would have been nice to let you custmise the look of the main character, like in KotOR or something.

    I like the sound of having respect bars for each of the subculture cliques, but on the othe rhand it sounds like another set of linear missions with pre-determined outcomes, ala GTA.

    And only choosing "good" and "bad" responses? More than two choices surely? Steambot Chronicles got that right, at least, even if it did ultimately fall into the trap of making out choices matter, when in fact it was just one choice that ever made an impact (and even then the endgame remained the same no matter what).

  • Shrimp #20 6 years ago

    Is it Latin for "Dog Eat Dog"? Bit cumbersome for a title though, should have just used the english phrase.

    Game sounds great to me though.

  • Mr_Whacker #21 6 years ago

    It sounds like Skooldaze updated but I'm getting a bit bored of the'missions' structure that most games like this have. Its good to see a free roaming flexible game thats not about shite gangstas though.

  • Madder-Max #22 6 years ago

    "Bullying takes many forms. I've experienced lots myself. Name-calling was pretty bad. And having things flicked at me - especially those revolting spit balls. It persists throughout life, so you grow a thick skin. Which helps when, say, you're caught making a fairly innocuous piece of software by a gang of influential loudmouths who then band together and slag you off without bothering to see what it's like first."

    :oD Quality!

    BTW....whatsthis canis canim edit thngy?
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/06 @ 12:55

  • haowan #23 6 years ago

    I hope the game doesn't show teachers in too bad a light. The porn/knickers story is mildly worrying from that perspective. Still, only a game eh

  • DaddyR #24 6 years ago

    It sounds good, like the 3d love child of Skool Daze and Ocean's Spectrum classis The Great Escape.

    And I totally agree with chupachups comment about the furore being started by the PR and marketing people. Twats.

  • kangarootoo #25 6 years ago

    @foxy2006

    Are you going to get all grumpy if they say its shite? ;)

  • Daikon #26 6 years ago

    Great title, too bad 99.99% of gamers doesn't have a clue what it means.

  • Genji #27 6 years ago

    "Great title, too bad 99.99% of gamers doesn't have a clue what it means."

    I think that would make it a "bad title", then.

    I still can't believe that that's the real title.

  • Blerk #28 6 years ago

    I hope the game doesn't show teachers in too bad a light. The porn/knickers story is mildly worrying from that perspective.

    We once bumped into one of our schoolteachers browsing the jazz mags in a not-so-local newsagents. It was an awkward moment for everyone. :-)

  • Bezzy #29 6 years ago

    Yeah. I had no idea it was re-named.

    Luckily, I gotz me some maaad latin skillz.


    We once bumped into one of our schoolteachers browsing the jazz mags in a not-so-local newsagents. It was an awkward moment for everyone. :-)

    Yeah. Jazz is so pretentious.
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/06 @ 13:15

  • Blerk #30 6 years ago

    I'm sure the title has been chosen on purpose. Hardly anyone will remember it or know how to pronounce it, so everyone will still call it 'Bully'. Do you see?

  • pollster #31 6 years ago

    Can the teachers cain you and throw board rubbers at you. Hope so. Will bring back (not so) fond memories
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/06 @ 13:23

  • Markusdragon #32 6 years ago

    "(It would be like naming GTA "Kill Pedestrians", totally misleading.) "

    When you think about it, they did name it 'Steal Cars'....
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/06 @ 13:45

  • dadrester #33 6 years ago

    ...and as a bonus he doesn't crawl along kerbs looking for hookers to knife.


    :D best.line.evah

    i think i might buy this... sounds right up my street. gta meets shenmue meets school daze

  • tiddles #34 6 years ago

    Hmm, not sure about the title... Wii has a lot to answer for in the weird naming stakes!

    Sounds excellent, though - my god, it's a game without guns or cars, how will we ever cope??

  • Kiigan #35 6 years ago

    - Dreadful title. "Bully" was fine. Even "Bullworth Academy" would have been better. No one is going to be asking for a game they can't pronounce.
    - PS2 only, in October? Will anyone still feel like buying PS2 games with 360, Wii and PS3 (not to mention DS and PSP) games competing for your cash this Xmas? It's arriving VERY late in the day to be a PS2 exclusive. I bet a 360 port is in the pipeline.
    - Ugliest lead character since... Dead Rising.

  • Kiigan #36 6 years ago

    "Canis Canem or Bully looks like its going to be GTA all over again, only this time with with school kids."

    Just out of interest, what makes you say that? I haven't seen much that makes me think of GTA at all.

  • nedrichards #37 6 years ago

    >Can anyone name any other games where you can beat children up with weapons?

    In N3 on the 360 Inphy massacres some defenceless goblin women and children in a cut scene and afterwards you too can hit tiny goblin kids with a big sword. However it's clearly seen as a Very Bad Thing and everyone else sort of shuns her afterwards. Oh and it's rated 12+ in the UK ;-)

  • Feanor #38 6 years ago

    I knew there'd be some ginger-bullying somewhere in these comments. :)

  • RoyalBiscuit #39 6 years ago

    Has this really been renamed? 'Canis Canem Edit' is just the motto of the in game school.

  • asphaltcowboy #40 6 years ago

    Sounds alright, would have been better called "Bulworth" or "Bulworth Academy"

  • wolfen #41 6 years ago

    So, the bastard offspring of GTA and portable Sims (Urbz, actually). Looks a lot more interesting than the first "GTA in a school" reports suggested.

  • MrChuckles #42 6 years ago

    'For someone named 'Mr Chuckles' you seem to be lacking in the sense of humour department.'

    He he, fair enough.

    But violence against children, afaik has been a taboo subject for a computer game until this point? (apart from general punching and kicking i guess)

  • Mr_Whacker #43 6 years ago

    / Cleese-style top of voice screeching/
    Canis Canem? Canis Canem?? The dog he does something to another dog?

    Tsk, the standard of people's Latin these days.... Its only been dead less than a thousand years.

  • #44 6 years ago

    At the end of it it's still kids hitting other kids, with the protagonist doing a fair ammount of hitting to advance in the game.

    Whoop-de-do, we do like to teach our children well.

    As an 'adult' (at 25) I read this as GTA-alike in a school where you hit other kids to advance. It also did not appeal at all. Gangs, weapons, free-roaming, mini-games, vehicles, oh-so-tired mission structure, engine - anyone who didn't see the GTA in it must have all their senses completely shut off.

    Perhaps I just didn't like school very much.

    /Sigh.

  • Kiigan #45 6 years ago

    The player will have a choice of weapons to choose from, get to wander around the location and have the use of bikes, karts and skateboards. Put all this into the Rockstar GTA game engine and i have a feeling GTA and Bully just might have the same feel to them.

    Well, this isn't being developed by Rockstar North, and it isn't using the GTA engine as far as I know. To say it's "GTA all over again, only this time with with school kids" simply because it has a selection of weapons and vehicles seems like a fairly fruitless avenue of thought IMO.

    We could certainly apply that kind of logic to just about any game if we wanted to, but I'm not sure it is an interesting or helpful point of view. Sure, GTA is just Elite except with gangsters. So what? Perhaps we could do without the ready reach for lazy comparisons. Not every puzzle game with blocks in it is like Tetris. Not every shooting game is like Doom. Not every game with a variety weapons and vehicles is like GTA. Etc.

  • #46 6 years ago

    I believed I clarified my reasons to believe this to be GTA-alike to my satisfaction.

    And Kiigan - take a look at the screenshots man. Boy-grown-up == GTA.

  • Mr_Whacker #47 6 years ago

    'Hop out of the car and the set-up's immediately familiar. There's a mini-map in the top-right that allows you to navigate'

    'The system's much like GTA's,....'

    Gang relations are tracked (wasn't this actually pioneered by GTA2?)

    Yeah, nothing like GTA then. And why is it false just because you can apply the logic throughout gaming? Similar gameplay mechanics makes them similar not engines.

  • spongebob #48 6 years ago

    Why is it PS2 exclusive? Now, that's REAL bullying.
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/06 @ 18:40

  • Machetazo #49 6 years ago

    I'm concerned that the game might be too linear. I mean, there needs to be a structure (the main reason my patience hit such a low ebb with SA) but if I'm going to play it, then it can't only demand all the player input of a FF book! So there are choices I can make - If I want, I can jump school; but if Jimmy's caught, then he's marched back to class, anyway...Yeah, that's fun. Even more so, when you take into account the medial tasks that are added onto what already is coming across as laborious gameplay, dare you try to "play" the game.

    >Can anyone name any other games where you can beat children up with weapons?
    I think Rule of Rose has you use various implements against some clawing, biting runts.
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/06 @ 19:47

  • Steroyd #50 6 years ago

    Why is it PS2 exclusive? Now, that's REAL bullying.

    Because MS cut of the umbilocal cord of the Xbox.

  • bloodflowers #51 6 years ago

    haowan: the porn thing and teachers... When I was at school we noticed a small stack of porn mags in the back of one of the teachers cars. A teacher who would drink between lessons (classical studies - he taught Latin).

  • TheEnd #52 6 years ago

    "Too American, too obvious..."

    IF it's by Rockstar North, it'd be Scottish...

  • Daikon #53 6 years ago

    @Genji

    Next time I'll spread the irony thicker to make sure you get it also ^_^

  • John_the_Fisherman #54 6 years ago

    Rockstar were compelled to change the name of the game by SCEE - they were blocking the game because of the name.
    Don’t you think if it was Rockstar’s choice they would’ve changed the name in the US too?

  • NegativeZero #55 6 years ago

    The main character looks like he has progeria or something. 30-year-old man's face on a 13-year-old's body.

  • Darren #56 6 years ago

    The game sounds really good. Shame then that I no longer own a PS2. An Xbox or PC port would be nice though...