Rockstar to release Bully game

SOMEBODY really ought to copy Rockstar and Take Two a memo on digging holes. With the fallout from Hot Coffeegate still landing half the industry up to its neck in crap they're pushing ahead with a videogame entitled simply "Bully".

Rockstar Games describes the upcoming title as one where gamers play a "troublesome schoolboy" who "stands up to bullies, gets picked on by teachers, plays pranks on malicious kids, wins or loses the girl, and ultimately learns to navigate the obstacles of the fictitious reform school."

Alright, so the pitch does have you playing the anti-bully-turned-bully, but really chaps you could have been more sensitive. The schools bullying watchdog, Bullying Online, here, has come out with strong statements against the game with the organisation's Liz Carnell telling the press: "This game should be banned. I'm extremely worried that kids will play it and then act out what they've seen in the classroom....Bullying is not a game by any stretch of the imagination. We have around four suicidal children contacting us every day." According to the organisation two million children in the UK are "bullied" in real-life school settings each year. µ