Bully: Scholarship Edition Review (★★☆☆☆)
To be honest, I'm not sure this game warrants a full review, so this may be all you see of this game here at TrustyGamer. Here is a quick rundown.
Summary:
You play a blatantly mal-adjusted teen entering a somewhat rundown private school of misfits. As you go about each day, attending class or resting in your dorm, you are afforded about 10 minutes to run missions or cause mischief. You can create more time for these alternative activities via skipping class or sleep, but usually those options are more trouble than they are worth.
Single Player and Overall Gameplay: ★★★☆☆
The game follows Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto formula in that it is a semi free-roaming game, with missions available at your disposal, but this title feels much more rushed. You are constantly running out of time, and it seems like a complete day/night cycle lasts about 15 minutes. Between having to attend 2 classes and make it back to your dorm by curfew, this leaves little time for completing the game's missions. Perhaps this is deliberate so that you don't finish the game to quickly, but regardless in the end it is annoying. There is simply too much overhead for too little actual gaming. If I wanted to manage my time and attend class for most of the gaming experience, I'd go back to grad school. But if you can look past the extra work you have to put in to enjoy some of the funner missions, the game can be rewarding.
Attending class consists of playing boring mini-games where you tap buttons in a certain sequence, or on time with music. Sometimes you are racing against the clock to connect dots or shuffle words, but none of it is particularly enjoyable. The real fun in this game is getting into fights, trying to make out with girls, and generally just raising hell. The problem is that even this becomes a bit repetitive and boring, and the game never really gets interesting beyond screwing around. It is fun to a point, and then it just stops being so. In that regard, Bully seems to fall exactly in between two other Rockstar titles: GTA III on the fun end, and State of Emergency on the repetitive and boring end.
The gameplay is fun enough to make it worthwhile, however there are many aspects of the title that make it a rental and not a purchase.
Multiplayer: ★☆☆☆☆
This is a PS2 port, and as such, there really isn't too much to the multiplayer of Bully. In fact it is total crap. The multiplayer consists of you and one other person competing against each other in a series of classroom puzzles (yes, the same boring mini-games from the single player game), or battling it out in piss-poor reproductions of Atari 2600 games. I'm fairly sure Rockstar paid its interns to make the multiplayer for this game. In fact, I think the entire port was done by interns as well. Needless to say, the multiplayer won't be adding any replay value to Bully.
Graphics: ★☆☆☆☆
I knew this game was a port from a PS2 title, but even so, I was shocked at how shitty the game looked. It's horrible. The polygon counts are as low as it gets, like a tech-demo for a Voodoo2 card. The textures are even worse, with plenty of repetition, and no next-gen features whatsoever. I literally think my eyes bled after watching the opening sequence (not to mention the game engine chugged quite a bit during the opening credits as well, indicating that the port code probably looks as good as the game does).
Sound: ★☆☆☆☆
This is also as basic as it gets. No real use of surround sound, and the sound quality is straight PS2. Heavily compressed vocals, no dynamic range, the whole bit. Yawn.
Soundtrack: ★★☆☆☆
This part of the game fares a bit better. The music that plays as you are carrying about is actually quite good, and matches the on-screen action nicely. There isn't too much variety though, and a soundtrack does not a game make.
Overall: ★★☆☆☆
Bully is a decently fun game to play if you are desperate for a GTA-style game on your Xbox 360. It's fun to go around and beat up other kids, hide in trashcans, and break windows with your slingshot. But in reality, these juvenile activities are just an appetizer for a meal that never arrives. As far as the meat and potatoes, there simply isn't enough of it. Thus, if you can wait for GTA IV, you are better off doing just that.

