Bully: Scholarship Edition

Added March 10th, 2008 by AJ

It’s been a year and a half since the bells at Bullworth Academy have chimed on the Playstation 2, and Rockstar Vancouver has finally decided to bring their sandbox game “Bully” to the Xbox360. When the words “Rockstar” and “sandbox game” are used within the same sentence, the average gamer would think of the Grand Theft Auto series. It’s true that Bully shares a lot of the same qualities with its big brother GTA, but by no means should the two be directly competing for your attention. Bully is a charming game with an astonishing sense of atmosphere, and although the game has some flaws, the adventure you experience is rather satisfying.

Bully is the story of Jimmy Hopkins, a troubled kid who’s abandoned by his mom and new step-father at the gates of Bullworth Academy boarding school. He’s promptly greeted by the snobbish secretary and the desperate principal who wishes for Jimmy’s assistance. From this point forward Jimmy discovers the multitude of problems that plagues the school staff and the various conflicts between the rivaling cliques. From here Jimmy decides to help with the problems instead of adding to them.

Bully is divided into five chapters, with each chapter dealing with one of the five factions in the game. The main goal of the game is to solve all of the problems, and make sure each group isn’t in conflict with other groups, while also helping a few teachers along the way. You’ll gain each clique’s trust by assisting the main leader of the group with various missions they assign you. All of the missions you play through succeed in continuing to provide the player with new scenarios and objectives until the very end. This is a ponderous task since, unlike Grand Theft Auto, Bully has no guns, no cars, no brutal violence, and no large open world. The game is very aware of its context and setting and never tries to be something it’s not.

When it comes to creating interesting characters and storylines, few games can compete with Bully’s presentation. Every character in this game is a joy to talk and listen to thanks to the great writing and voice acting. The colorful cast of characters will keep you laughing the entire time. Whether it be the drunk English teacher attempting to hide his addictive habit, the preppies trying to protect their families’ name or even Jimmy himself chiming in with his voice of reason in many of the ridiculous, but believable scenarios.

While the story related characters are a marvelous bunch, the game also has a good sense of style on the technical side of things. The soundtrack of this game is perfect. It really captures the essence of being in high school. The innocent melodic theme as you walk around the school grounds or the suspicious score that intensifies when the action starts to get heavy, the music pleasantly fits the environment and context of each situation. And the humor manages to present itself even outside of scripted cut-scenes. The ability to stuff kids into lockers, giving some poor-soul a wedgie, and various other bullying skills never become old and maintain the High School mood of the game.

But why are we talking about laughing and music? This is Bully! Not “Across the Universe: The Game.” During your quest to fix the problems at your school you’re going to help a lot of people, but everyone you don’t help you can be a complete jerk to. Egg cars, beat kids up and spit in their eyes, make a jock pee his pants, throw marbles so teachers can slip and fall on them, or as previously mentioned stuff kids in trash cans and lockers. If you’re in High School now, or have ever been in High School, all of these activities will really appeal to you.

If you ever do manage to get bored of bullying kids there’s still an enormous amount of other activities you can do. Bully does feature a lot of collect-a-thon quests such as going around town spray painting walls, collecting rubber bands or trading cards, and finding radio transistors. However there are other mini-game orientated tasks that allow you to quickly gain cash such as mowing lawns and doing paper routes. But if you want more character related upgrades you’ll have to go to class. Since you’re in school, there is a set schedule of when classes start, whether or not you wish to attend class is up to you.

Each class has its own mini-game. Math class may have you answer a variety of mathematical equations, geography will have you match flags to places on the map, and biology class will have you perform a dissection on a small animal. There are eight classes in all, all providing their own specific mini-game and benefit. Depending on which class you complete you’ll receive a different type of benefit. If you want to work on your fighting skills you may want to show up in Gym class more often, but if you want more luck with the ladies you’ll want to go to Art class. Because of these benefits you’ll actually be inclined to go to class, and have a fun time while you’re there. It also helps that all these mini-games are available in two player multiplayer. The multiplayer isn’t online, and doesn’t even support four people, but if you have a friend over and want to see who can name more countries in South America, the multiplayer serves its purpose well.

The game runs on a 24 hour clock and each class starts and ends at specific times. If you’re caught fooling around on campus during class time by one of the overbearing prefects you’ll be sent to class. If you’re caught outside of school during class the police will drop you off at the front gates. These two authority figures will also harass you for any other misdemeanor crimes you commit. But the punishment you receive rarely ever goes past a simple “please don’t do that again” warning. Even serious crimes such as stealing a baseball bat and beating a police officer over the head with it has no serious consequence. The twenty-four-hour clock also serves other purposes such as when school closes, when curfew starts, and when you pass out from exhaustion. But all the authority figures are fairly easy to avoid or escape, so you never really have to worry about any of that stuff.

If you missed Bully the first time around, scholarship edition is a great game to pick up. The only possible complaints to have with this game are the extremely unimpressive graphics, and the laughably simplistic difficulty setting, when compared to the rest of the package these complaints seem more like cherry picking rather than actual reasons not to play this game. If you’re looking for a fun, enjoyable, and hilarious sandbox game, Bully is very easy to recommend. The game is a joy to play, and probably one of the funniest games ever made. If you’re someone who likes having fun and laughing, buy Bully (For $49.99 USD).