Monster Hunter still hasn't made a huge impact in the West. Even the mistitled "Freedom" version for the PSP tanked on shelves, partly due to its lack of Infrastructure mode online play – a crucial component to its popularity in Japan. How do you expect a game to sell when it's missing the key feature that makes it unique in the first place?

Thankfully, it seems that Capcom is listening to its fans. The following e-mail has been sent out to gamers:

"Hi there,

Remember the issues you had with the lack of infrastructure mode for Monster Hunter Freedom on PSP? Well, we’d like to get your help and also get the word out to your readers for their help in completing a survey that will help us get some hard research on the infrastructure mode for the game. This could help shape future games, so your assistance is much appreciated. Here’s where you can find the survey:

http://www.capcom.com/monster/survey/

Capcom is really starting to put a huge emphasis on their community (and rightly so!). In addition to the relaunch of the Capcom website and community boards, surveys like this will help us connect with our fanbase and really listen to what they have to say (and in turn go back to the R&D teams to show them real proof of what people think.) Help us help you!

Thanks in advance"

If you're one of the few American Monster Hunter fans out there (and honestly, it's not a bad game, just mistreated on this side of the world), you can hit up the survey yourself and tell Capcom what you think. Who knows? Monster Hunter Freedom 2 might just feature that online action you've all been clamoring for!

You can't really discuss Bully without dipping into the controversy that has surrounded its release. Believe me, I tried to think of so many other ways to begin this review, but I could never completely sidestep the issue at hand. From Jack Thompson's usual bellyaching to state judge's playtesting the game beforehand and a prompted name change in Europe, Bully has been through more crap in the weeks before its arrival than probably any other game in industry history.

Of course, this is what media hype does – simultaneously criticizing content and fostering sales – without knowing Jack about it in the first place. Whatever happened to not judging a book by its cover or, you know, investigative journalism? Who ever publishes the stories they get wrong? The controversy quickly deflated as actual reviews came out and gamers themselves got their hands on Bully. Even the above-mentioned judge gave the game a pass (though it begs the question why it needed to be singled out in the first place, when many other elements of popular entertainment get a free ride all the time) and a few people in the mainstream media finally caught on. Peter Hartlaub, a journalist for the San Francisco Gate, wrote:

Right on!

When it comes right down to it, there's very little about Bully that's controversial at all. The violence isn't bloody, the sex is non-existent, and the language is limited to what I like to call "TV swearing" – as in the kind of mild cussing you'll see on your average prime-time programming. A lot of it still comes off as rather superfluous (it's not meant to be taken completely serious), but it's all innocuous.

What you will find in Bully is an overall engaging storyline, unique characters, plenty of pranks and victimless hijinks, and a fairly open-ended world that Rockstar has come to be known for. The developers have made strides to distance Bully from Grand Theft Auto, but it still bears a remarkable likeness in terms of gameplay mechanics and mission structure. The mini-map, the familiar checkpoint races, the clothing/haircut shops that allow you to change Jimmy Hopkin's appearance? All present. Even the fighting system takes direct cues from last year's The Warriors.

Regardless, Bully is able to stand on its own as a game brimming with content, even in its relatively small setting (the New England town of Bullworth, roughly the size of one of the cities in GTA 3). It's more intimate and each character in the game has his/her own unique model and voice actor. This does present a problem, because it leaves the developers only a set number of citizens to work with. You'll find some in specific areas and they'll perform random actions to make them seem more alive, but it's nowhere near as deep as, say, Oblivion's NPCs who have specific daily routines.
Still, you could walk by a character, then see the same one just a block down the road when there was no possible way for them to get over there that fast. It's one of those niggling problems that can bring you out of the game for a moment.

Another problem arises in the actual telling of the story. Despite my love of such movies as "Revenge of the Nerds" and "The Breakfast Club" which clearly inspire the plot of Bully and the interesting characters, the core game is far too short and disconnected to flesh the world out as fully as it possibly could have been. I kept feeling like pieces were missing and confrontations were resolved too fast. Heck, Jimmy's main rival disappears for most of the game after the first chapter.

Those who strive for 100% completion can clearly extend the experience (in fact, the game even gives you an "Endless Summer" mode after completing the main story to go back and finish everything you missed), but a tad bit more cohesiveness could have gone a long way.

Aesthetically, the game occupies a sort of middle-ground between GTA and the better-looking games of this generation. Characters animate well and the environments are reasonably detailed, but technical points like textures and polygon levels remain somewhat low. Ironically, what shines is the soundtrack. Not simply because it's good, but because it manages to be so in spite of the fact that it is not licensed . No radio stations or eclectic collection of station DJs here, but a fantastic composition remains in place. It fits the mood perfectly.

Bully comes together as a game that manages to be both somewhat derivative and unique. I never felt like it was particularly new or fresh in terms of gameplay mechanics, but it does tackle a setting and issues that rarely come up in the world of video games, because the industry, media, and (sadly) many gamers are too caught up in getting all googly-eyed over empty violence to appreciate when a game tries to rise above such shallow meanderings.

You can be one of the titular bruisers in Bully if you want – toss eggs and shoot bottle rockets at people all day long if you want – but you can't truly progress in the game unless you come to understand anti-hero Jimmy's actions. He may use his fists to solve problems and he may have gotten kicked out of several different schools on his way to Bullworth Academy, but that's because he fundamentally rejects what's rotten in our world – selfish, moralizing adults who are worse at following their own platitudes than those that they force them on and a dog-eat-dog social structure that rewards those with unbridled ambition and "manliness" over people who have real talent and compassion for others.

Of course, Jack Thompson wouldn't know that because he's too busy being one of those unruly adults that Bully spends a lot of time skewering.

They

they were finished after Stranger's Wrath tanked last year (critics ate it up, but it languished on the shelves), but Oddworld's new property Citizen Siege is reeling them back into the industry they thought they had abandoned for good.

It isn't a complete return to form, though – Oddworld Inhabitants sought to use its talent to work on CG projects for television and film. The as-yet-undetailed Citizen Siege was birthed out of the genesis of this new ideology and the result is a franchise that will now span both mediums.

Co-founder Lorne Lanning says of the synergy: "Oddworld has had the chance to create original property that was designed as a film and as a game experience simultaneously. So the two influence one another as they grow. This is an idea that's being talked about by media companies, but for the most part isn't really happening yet."

Who knows if OI will find success in their new venture, but backing from Shrek producer John Williams should ensure that Citizen Siege has a chance at the box office. The film's video game counterpart has already been shopped around to publishers and according to Lanning, "the response has been fabulous."