Bully: Scholarship Edition – Mad Doc Software, LLC, Rockstar Vancouver – X360

[Azazel]

Bully: Scholarship Edition – Mad Doc Software, LLC, Rockstar Vancouver – XBox 360

So, with GTA4 now released, it’s only inevitable that I finally started playing Bully a couple of weeks ago, and have decided to finish it before really starting into GTA properly.

It’s basically Grand Theft Boarding School, and is generally fun. The mini-games range from quite good to “my-god-this-is-badly programmed” to “the hell with this, I’m getting cheats off the internets”.

The game is really a much-toned-down kind of GTA, with side missions, story missions that unlock more stuff and more of the town. There are only about 40 students in the game, and the school grounds are clearly big enough for about 500 (except for the dorms, which couldn’t even fit in the 40 properly if Jimmy’s room is any indication).

So few students and such large grounds has been met with the elegant solution of finding the same few students every 100 metres or so, which is ok for the more generic ones, but problematic for the distinctive ones, like your harem of girlfriends. (“Hey, didn’t I just snog you a minute ago back in the library? How did you get here before me when I skated here?”)

Loading times are pretty bloody horrific, and show you the same five loading screens each time. Why this is, I simply can’t fathom. Outdoor zones stream as did the previous GTA games, but when you step into any building, or even into any classroom, there’s 10-15 seconds of loading screens for your entertainment.

Graphics are ok. They’re clearly old-gen-upsized for the newer consoles. They still look decent, but you can tell this was a game developed for the last wave of consoles. Graphically, it’s no Saints Row or Crackdown, though.

But yeah, despite the flaws, it’s fun. I’m enjoying it enough to put off getting properly into GTA4. (I also know if I start playing GTA4 I'll never come back to this game). Three weeks ago I’d have recommended this as a ”buy it” for GTA-type game fans, but with GTA4 out now, I’d suggest it as a rental.

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Rent It.

[Azazel]

Well, I finished this thing two nights ago, and it was definately a solid bit of fun. The long, slow loading screens never cease to grate, but it's a nice bit of GTA-lite gameplay. I may or may not go back in and finish off all the bike races, I'll never 100% it, partly because of a small bug where the last of the G&G (ie D&D) cards no longer shows up on my map, so I've got Buckley's chance of ever finding it. This is Bully's version of the old "collect all the whatevers" they they always stick in the sandbox games, though less annoying since they show up on your ingame map after you complete some of the Geography classes. GTA could learn from this and patch that shit in once you've achieved some objective.

I considered playing GTA4 afterwards, but instead stuck on Saints Row, which I never finished. After a couple of missions of that, I decided that I need to take a break from Sandbox games for a little while.

But yeah, if you want a bit of fun, in a lighthearted GTA style, without the actual killing or any form of gangsta-ism, you could do far worse than picking up Bully.

[Azazel]

The sad part now is I'm tempted to get back onto this and finish all the races. I probably would if not for that D&D card glitch. Fuckers.