Before I start the review I should mention that because I only rented Bully: Scholarship Edition, I haven’t had the chance to play through the entire game, nor have I had the chance to play the co-op modes (a controller was mysteriously rendered “unusable” after a game of Halo 3). So this review isn’t based on the full game, just everything I managed to play through over the course of 2 days.
2 years ago (ish) the original ‘Bully’ game came out for PS2, and earlier this month the ‘Bully: Scholarship Edition’ (BSE) came out for Xbox 360 and Wii. I actually wasn’t too fussed about playing the game at first, but then I noticed the little Rockstar logo in the bottom corner. I’ve had a very good gaming relationship with Rockstar (I loved the Grand Theft Auto series and ‘The Warriors’) so I decided to pop round to Blockbuster and rent out the game for the weekend.
BSE puts you in the shoes of Jimmy Hopkins who, at the start of the game, becomes a student at Bullworth Academy. The start of the game is fairly linear; you’ll go to class, find your way around, and learn how to survive. As you progress through the game, you unlock more areas to explore, more weapons to use, and more tasks to attempt. It’s something Rockstar have done before, and it works, albeit on a smaller scale than I was expecting. The storyline is decent, but the thing I liked about BSE is that it allowed you to play the game how you want to play it; if you want to earn a bit of money, build up your skills, or just walk around town kicking people, you can do it.
When I first started playing I thought the gameplay was a little stiff, and it all felt basic. But then I realised that this was just some ordinary kid, not a gun-toting, half-demon psychopath a la Devil May Cry, so the movement and combat work with the character and the surroundings. The way you fight is totally juvenile, and a lot of fun; especially when you get to use the “humiliation” moves. The humiliations range from the well-known Chinese burn to the brilliant “Stop hitting yourself” routine, and are all quite funny the first time you get to use them. The only issue I have with the fighting is that the humiliations weren’t varied enough, and once you’ve seen somebody being bitchslapped 30 times it gets a little dull - but when it does, you can find other ways to bully your schoolmates. Jimmy has a pretty big inventory of items; ranging from the typical slingshot (which has a scope sight, for some reason) to bags of marbles. They are really helpful in certain situations, if you use them smartly can turn a fight in seconds: this adds a lot to what is otherwise a fairly repetitive combat experience.
The main gameplay in BSE does a very good job, and alone it would get a decent score, but what really impressed me was the amount of minigames; there are hundreds of them littered around the place, and they’re very varied. They provide a fun break from the story, and offer lots of rewards; money, women, clothes, or easy access to new equipment. They’re also perfectly implemented, so if you really can’t be bothered sitting through a lesson to unlock a new kind of weapon, you won’t find the game impossible without it.
The soundtrack fits the game very well; the music you hear in a fight is different to the music you hear if you’re running away. It sets the right tone and its fairly original, to be honest you can’t ask for much more than that. Everything sounds like you’d expect it to, which really helps the general atmosphere of the game. The voice acting is the usual high (based on my experiences) Rockstar standard, and makes up for some fairly average writing; which usually revolves around “Ha, I called you a girl, but you’re a boy”, and feels quite half arsed most of the time. The other times, however, is very good stuff, littered with subtle innuendo and deals with a lot of issues. Overall, the sound is very good.
Graphically the game isn’t that impressive, and definitely doesn’t look as good as Grand Theft Auto IV, but as a PS2 port it looks very good. Occasionally, on the horizon you’ll have trees hovering in the air until the ground pops up underneath them, but its minor issues. Another issue is the camera; sometimes it will get into incredibly annoying places and you’ll have to fiddle for a good few seconds to get it free. This tends to happen at the worst possible time - like during a fight or chase - and at that point it becomes very annoying.
There are very few games without issues, and BSE has one glaring one: loading screens. They’re long, they’re consistent, and they’re a pain in every gamers ass. The thing I struggle to understand is why they have so many; the game doesn’t look spectacular, and its a port from a last-gen console, it’s something Rockstar could have - and should have - ironed out for the release. Another issue I had was that the game would occasionally freeze - I haven’t read much about BSE so I don’t know if freezing is a common problem or if it is just the disk I was using, but if you’re considering buying a copy you should definitely read up on it. I only experienced one other issue, and that was brief; while riding the bike, the front wheel fell into the floor. I stayed like that until somebody tried to muscle me off my bike, at which point I fell over, my bike sprang up into the air, and I never saw it again. Go figure.
The last complaint I have about the game is that the law-enforcers (police, prefects and teachers in BSE) are, for some reason, psychic. I don’t mind being caught by them, chased by them, or whatever else they do; but if I egg a car with nobody else but me and the driver around, I don’t expect the entire police precinct to pop around the corner and try to arrest me. I think the game would be better if you could do all the vandalism and then try and sneak off undetected, that would add a new stealth element to the game; but instead it felt like BSE was punishing me for trying to have too much fun with the game.
Still, overall I really liked Bully: Scholarship Edition. There’s a lot to do in the game, even in the small section I played, and it will keep you playing for a long time. At first I thought it was an average game, but it grew on me: so if you think the same when you play it, stick with it, because you won’t be let down.
Story: -
Multiplayer: -
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 8/10
Design: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
Screenshots from IGN- http://uk.ign.com/