Game Reviews | Game Previews

Summary

So I had missed out on the PS2 and XBOX launch of Bully. When the it came to the 360 however I was a little curious. I bought it for $20 new, so it had been out for awhile obviously. I was cautious after reading about all the supposed glitching problems from gamespot. What I experienced though was a game I had truly been missing out on all those years.


GOOD:
- lack of violence and killing in no way detracts from this game, I actually give them credit for working around it.
- the characters! Everyone you meet from the townies, students, and teachers have their own odd hilarious but familiar personalities which makes you really care about them.
- There is actually alot to do in this game compared to say GTA 4 and red dead redemption. Yes Im serious. Carnival, school, and jobs. Not to mention all missions in this are actually exciting and funny.
-Many many small touches like being able to stuff people in trashcans, give them swirlies, pul the fire alarms, have food fights, snowball fights, egg houses.. and odds are they have nothing to do with the mission. Just for fun.
- The fighting is surprisingly good. I recall this team working on the warriors..


BAD:
- All I can really complain about is there not being any DLC or new games in this series.. honestly. (I had no glitches by the way)


I am not claiming this game to be perfect. But it was a breath of fresh air for me, and proves in my opinion Rockstar truly shines when their open worlds have less size and can focus on quality. If you like open world games, Rockstar games, or just want something different then I would absolutely suggest this to any gamer.

Summary

When Bully arrived on PlayStation 2 a year-and-a-half ago, quite a number of people ignored it. After all, the next generation of gaming had begun. So it is likely that the majority of 360 owners never gave Rockstar's open-world angst-ridden game a shot. Good thing for second chances. Bully: Scholarship Edition polishes the graphics, adds a handful of new missions and delivers a unique and thoroughly charming experience on Xbox 360.
Though developed by Rockstar, makers of the Congressional-favorite Grand Theft Auto series, Bully is a T-rated game. There's no blood, no guns, no boosting of cars. Assault an officer of the law and you don't get a 6-star wanted rating -- you get busted. That doesn't mean there isn't plenty of mayhem (and violence) in Bully, just that it's not a GTA clone. Imagine if John Hughes made an open-world videogame starring John Bender, the thug from The Breakfast Club, and you should have a pretty good idea of the tone for Bully. This is an angst-filled game; a light-hearted simulation of the horrors of high school. And it's a lot of fun.
All n All, its Cool n awesome...this game rocks :)

Summary

Bully was released for the PS2 in 2006 and I loved it. Kept the game forever until about 2 years or so later they released what was called "Bully Scholarship Edition". The differences were improved graphics, 8 new missions, 4 new classes, and of course achievements.

Graphics- The graphics are an improvement over the PS2 for sure. PS2's graphics are still much better then the Wii's though. Everything looks fairly nice and even some of the character models look better (Scholarship Edition made girls look hotter, etc). The only problem is in some cut scenes or gameplay interactions with characters when they speak their mouths hardly move at all which looks ridiculous and gets annoying.

Gameplay- The gameplay is easy to learn and fun.

Story- Jimmy Hopkins a 15 year old teenager has been expelled from several other schools across the country and lives a troubled life with his Mom having been married 3 or 4 times and is now off on her new honeymoon with an old rich guy. Jimmy's Mom and new Step dad go off on a cruise for their honeymoon and drop Jimmy off at Bullworth the toughest and worst school in the country. This is Jimmy's last chance. He can't get expelled again or it's Juvy. Along with meeting a backstabbing sociopath named Gary Smith, an innocent nice smart shy guy named Pete Kowalski, and a townie Zoe who becomes Jimmy's love interest towards the end of the game, Jimmy must learn to deal with the school's various cliques including Bullies, Nerds, Greasers, Preppies, Jocks, and the Townies who live in the towns outside of the school Jimmy tries to conquers each clique by beating them and their leaders up to the point of surrendering and he becomes the new boss and with that tries to tame each clique so they don't bully anymore. A really well done plot I enjoyed playing it.

Replayability- With the added on classes, and missions you will be playing this long then the original version.

Fun Factor- There are plenty of things to do like kiss girls, pick fights, save the nerd, bully the nerd, bully anyone, buy clothes, get haircuts, change hair styles, do errands, fight for new save locations, learn new fighting moves and combos from an old drunken hobo among others things. There is more then plenty to do.

Overall- Overall Bully is a great game and Bully Scholarship Edition is even better. Worth every dollar you pay for!

Summary

I've been playing bully since it was in the PS2. The game was highly addictive. It's like GTA but... Playing as a teenager instead of a mad gangster, an Immigrant from eastern Europe, A biker gang vice/president or even a club manager. And you're playing in a smaller city, which unlike any GTA games i've played, that have a school (Seriously, have you ever seen any school on any GTAs? Well, apart from the driving school in SA)

Good Points:
>It just brings back the memory of playing the PS2 version. Very similar (duh) but with some more contents so it doesn't be the exact game we knew and love. Hey, if it were the same game without any additional contents, i wouldn't buy it.

>In the game we can do ALMOST everything we can't really do in our real life school (Smacking bullies, jocks? Yeah?) and get no real physical penalty. Maybe a bit of a sore thumb, but well... That happens, right?

>I like the combat systems. Jimmy ain't a bodybuilder but he's no weak guy either. Not overpowered nor too weak. And learning new fighting moves from the gym or the bloody hobo behind the wrecked schoolbus is well... Okay. But seriously.. A hobo? And you have to give him radio transistors?
Yeah, rite...

>Quite like the new classes. All except math. And geography. Because both actually requires you to think. I hate thinking when playing my game. This ain't school! Well, in the game it is though...

>Let's sum it up. Good story, Great overall gameplay mechanics, great dialogues and lines, great characters, and they have re-make the game on the 360. Damn nice

Bad Points:

>The graphics. Well, being a game converted from older systems, we can't really complain about it can we? Not much has changed though. Too bad. Seeing what can be done with GTA IV (which is a bigger game), they should've re make the whole game in HD.

>Controls is very twitchy. Twitchier than i remember. Sometimes, when you wanna hit this guy, you end up hitting the guy behind you.

>Frequent and long loading times. They pop up everywhere! You wanna go inside the dorm, loading. You wanna buy a bicycle, loading. The damn thing's everywhere!

>Same problem as the original bully. The camera is quite too far away.

>Yet another problem from the original bully. There's still NO AUTOSAVE at all! You have to save manually. And you never know when 'shift' happens right? If you forgot to save. Bam. All progress lost. That JUST happened to me a few minutes ago. Don't let the same thing happens to you!

>Lastly, despite the extra contents, it still feels overly similar. Not because it's basically the same game, there just isn't enough extra contents i think. Yes, there are new missions, new things to do, new clothes and stuffs. But i want the game to be like GTA IV's EFLC. A whole load of new contents. New weapons, vehicles.

I still like the game though. It's an amazing small expansion from an already great game. Just gonna release my stress after losing that unsaved game for maybe a day. I'll be back playing it tomorrow. Perhaps....

Summary

Bully:
Scholarship Edition

Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar Vancouver, Mad Doc Software
Platform: Xbox 360
Rated: Teen
Released: March 4, 2008

Visuals:

The visuals for Bully: Scholarship Edition are not that bad at all for a game that went under a re-release for the next gen consoles and the original release for this game as been released on the last gen consoles of the original Xbox and PlayStation 2 and so with this updated version you nice crisp graphics that look good on standard television set and on high definition television set as well or on t.v sets that have both. So other than nice crisp updated HD graphics for this game it just does not keep up that well even with some update's that have come out for this game and the visuals seem to have some hiccups and frame rate issues which can cause your system to freeze's from time to time but it will not stop you from playing this game. The detail to the main character Jimmy Hopkins looks pretty good and very well detailed and so are the (NPC's) and most of them do not look half bad and most of the (NPC's) look copy and pasted a lot which should not bother you to much nut it might get a little annoying for you. Now the detail to the environment of the make belief of the boarding school of Bullworth Academy and the detail to the town of Bullworth does not look half bad either for a game that came out in 2008 and looks good on the Xbox 360. So in short for the visuals for this game is rather nice to look at with the HD update and makes it very decent to look at, but the minor hiccups and frame rate issues could or might cause a problem for you even if you install the game to the hard-drive, but it is still pretty nice to look at even with the minor problem's, so they are just plain nice and very decent to enjoy looking at.

Audio:

The audio for Bully: Scholarship Edition is rather great to from the ridiculously great and humorous sound track and very funny voice work and is still very solid none the less with or with out the humor. So I'll start with the sound track which is pretty funny some time like for example when you are getting chased by the cops or prefects or anyone else and you get this music that will kinda sound like a 70's porno movie and it is very funny cause it happen's almost every time when you are getting chased and this does not always happen but when this music comes on whe n you are getting you might kinda find it funny and might ask your self why am running away or hearing this kind of music when this happens and find it hilarious or annoying. The voice work for this game is pretty good and the character's had some very well written and humorous dialog and the voice actor's were all great for this game and the voice work on the main character Jimmy was just superb and he did an amazing jod in bringing Jimmy Hopkins to life. Now the sound effects for this game was not it's strong point at and I'm just say that they kind of sounded very lame and dated. So in short for the audio of this game is this the sound effects are dated but the voice work and sound track was great and for the one exception with sound the effects the audio is just plain great.

Gameplay:

Now the gameplay for Bully: Scholarship Edition and yes this game has a multiplayer but it is only 2 player local co-op so I'll talk about that first and the point of this co-op for this game is and as far as I know is not story co-op it is only involved with the mini-game that are in this game and you can play them with a friend or you can just play them by yourself and their is quite a few mini-games like bike and go kart races, lawn mower jobs and so on. So now for the main point of this game the single player and the single player is a open-world adventure that well keep you busy for hours. So in this game you play as a mischievous 15 year old Jimmy Hopkins as he goes through the fictional world of a New England boarding school of Bullworth Academy and tells his story of him going through the hilarity and awkwardness of adolescence and beat the jocks at dodge ball, prank the preppies, save the nerds, kiss the girl and ultimately navigate the social hierarchy in the worst school around and so basically go from a nobody to the king of the school to being ex-spelled to getting enrolled back in and even run a muck around the town. Their are some problems like if you were looking to go through this game with no problems like freezing crashes and even though their has been up dates for this game but you will experience some freezes and crashes and some other issues that are a bit minor but can still be an issue like the screen going black in the middle of some end chapter boss battles sort of speak. So with that said and in short for the gameplay for this game is worth it it will keep you busy for hours and the story is quite good and the problems are minor but they are still a problem and despite the problems this game's gameplay is just plain good.

Overall:

The overall for this game is this yes their are some frame rate issues and some problems with the visuals and gameplay but it should not make you stray away from this game cause the rest of this game is just great with the decent and good updated visuals for the Xbox 360, great audio in the sound track and voice work and the game's story is pretty good and it will keep you busy for hours and you can find it for a nice low price and any where from $10 - $20 dollars or less and this game is a definitely worth picking up if you can fund it and because this is the Scholarship Edition will bring you the full original game and 8 new missions, 4 new classes you can attend, 4 new character's 2 player mini-game's and new rewards and achievements. So the point is you hole it to yourself to check this out and if you like open-world game's from Rockstar games or just plain open-world games in general then this game is for you so go check it out.

7.5 out of 10