Canis Canem Edit: 15-Rated

Rockstar’s just sent word that Canis Canem Edit ('Dog Eat Dog', the formerly named, controvo-fest that was Bully) has been given a 15-rating in the UK by the BBFC.

Interesting news, particularly in light of the surprising amount of misinformed bad press the game has garnered since it was first announced back in May 2005.

SPOnG’s played CCE - extensively - and we can assure you that, as well as being a solid nine (at least) it’s nothing at all like the muck-raking, game-hating Jack Thompsons of this world would have us believe.

The BBFC's 15-rating is perfectly fair and valid, as the Rockstar rep SPOnG just came off the phone with was happy to point out. The game contains some content unsuitable for minors, so it shouldn't be sold to younger teenagers. But to criticise the game for encouraging bullying in schools is so far off the point, it's actually hilarious.

In fact, we would go so far as to suggest that the game has, with little or no effort from Rockstar, achieved a wonderful thing indeed. It's made sure that the videogame-hating, Moral Minority (as represented by good ol' Jack Thompson) has ended up with some serious egg on its face.

The real bullies in this whole debacle are not the genius gaming wizards at Rockstar, but the fun-hating American Religious Right, as it denounces anything outside its blinkered worldview as being clearly wrong and evil. In the case of Bully, Thompson has, perhaps more clearly than ever before, demonstrated his unwillingness to consider the facts, to analyse the actual content in the game or to enter into any kind of productive debate relating to the best ways of controlling children's access to unsuitable forms of entertainment, including, but not limited to, books, movies, DVDs, videogames, music, live events and so on.

Perhaps our favourite hysterical quote relating to this matter was Thomson's assertion that Bully was clear evidence that: "...America is becoming the land of the free and the home of the utterly depraved". Strong words, especially when they were based on little more than a couple of early released, innocuous screens from the game. Read more on that news story from back in September if you need further evidence of Thompson's love of controversial quotes over basic facts and reason.

Then you might also want to read SPOnG's first preview of Canis Canem Edit to get our detailed first impressions on this rather super little game, which proudly wears its inspirations on its (rather snotty, raggedy) sleeve – with nods to Grange Hill, Just William, Porkies, Dazed and Confused and other such classic stories of cheeky-scamps, schooldays capers and teenage shenanigans.

Which is of course, not in any way a shock to regular SPOnG readers. Rockstar rarely put out a dud these days (Manhunt excluded *cough* - Ed). Canis Canem Edit is, for SPOnG, well up there with the best outings in the GTA series, as well as other gems such as Rockstar Presents Table Tennis, our Sports Game of 2006.

When we last sat down and played Canis Canem Edit with the guys over at Rockstar in London, as well as being utterly charmed by the game's tongue-in-cheek humour, we found ourselves in agreement with Wired’s Clive Thomson, who recently posted a very thoughtful and on-the-money piece, looking at the chequered history of how Bully/CCE has been received in the mainstream media.

As Thomson notes: “While Bully is extremely fun…it’s an even more intriguing glimpse into today's digital politics. Because Bully has had the weirdest history of any game yet: It endured a vicious backlash more than year before being released.”

He continues: “…The Bully storm began the very instant that Rockstar first announced the game. In May 2005, Rockstar released a single sentence describing it -- noting that you'd play as "a troublesome schoolboy" who would "learn to navigate the obstacles of the fictitious reform school, Bullworth Academy".

It was at this point that Jack Thompson and his cronies saw blood. And all hell broke loose, with peace campaigners and anti-bullying groups protesting outside Rockstar’s New York offices and school boards banning the game. Before it was actually out.

Everything that the American Religious Right perceived to be ‘bad’ about videogames and their effects on our culture and our children was seemingly encapsulated in this game. The fact that hardly any details and only a smattering of screens had been released by Rockstar at that point didn’t get in the way of this full-blown attack on reason and common-sense.

Strange then, that since previews of the game have started to appear over the last month that the anti-Bully crowd has become considerably less vociferous in the US. Perhaps this has to do with the basic, unarguable fact that the game is not actually about or encouraging bullying?

As Wired’s Thomson notes: “It's almost precisely the opposite… Instead, most of your early missions involve you defending the helpless: Escorting weak-bladdered nerds past phalanxes of threatening athletes, or sneaking into the girls' locker room to retrieve an essay that popular cheerleader stole from a helpless she-geek….I almost wondered if Rockstar had been so burned by the years of criticism that it was actively attempting to thwart everyone's grim predictions.”

Canis Canem Edit releases later this month in the UK exclusively on PS2. SPOnG urges you to buy it, play it and grin your face off, just like you used to do after a successful practical joke on your local bully/strictest teacher back in those heady days of school.

We also await the almost predictable Daily Mail outcry to ban this evil game. Which will come, despite the facts.

Please let us know your favourite hysterical anti-videogame rants and quotes which are based on fear, fun-denial and ignorance in the forum below.