Bully: Scholarship Edition

March 12,2008 - For most, Rockstar’s Bully isn’t an unfamiliar name. After having endured an onslaught of social and political backlash from teachers and parents to legislators and of course, Jack Thompson, the dark comedy has made its next-gen transformation from the PS2 in the form of Bully: Scholarship Edition. While there’s certainly enough reason for those who never played the original to check it out, it’s safe to say that someone who’s had experience with the game should pass on this one; which is fine considering that’s not who Rockstar re-released the game for.

The game’s premise remains unchanged from the original. You follow troublemaker Jimmy Hopkins as he navigates his way through the intricate and delicately balanced social ecosystem of Bullworth Academy, a private high school with a reputation for disciplining even the most notorious rabble-rousers. Progressing through the game’s chapters, you will create and destroy alliances with the various cliques in the school, including the Nerds, Preppies, Jocks, and Greasers.

Being the social butterfly that you are, as you advance you will befriend especially memorable characters, while creating bad blood with others. This is one of Bully’s highest points: its character development. Sure, the visuals, even on the Wii definitely aren’t as good as they could be, but the characters you interact with are well fleshed-out and each is relatively distinct. One especially laughable moment was when one of our girlfriends, Beatrice, informed us that her cold sore wouldn’t be contagious once it scabbed over. Disgusting, but hilarious nonetheless.

The game’s humor is readily apparent, from jokes that stare you right in the face, to more adult-like wit such as the herpetic gag above. This is Bully’s other strong suit: It is unequivocally a funny game. Many games that try their hand at comedy fall flat, but Rockstar hit the nail right on the head, offering up amusing one-liners for both younger and older age groups; something The Simpsons was once known for.

To its dismay, unfortunately, the occasionally bad voice acting mars the delivery of jokes. Although most of the cast is spot-on, such as Jimmy’s “friend,” Gary, there are others who just don’t seem to fit their lines; and surprisingly, Jimmy himself is one of those characters. Some, but certainly not most, or even a lot, of the voice acting seems a little canned.

Just like any student enrolled in school, you have classes, of which four of them are new to the roster; they include Biology, Music, Math, and Geography. We’d like to go on record to say we’re absolutely atrocious at European geography.  Biology is fun, and especially nerve-wracking when facing off against a friend in multiplayer in a race of “who can cut open the dead rat the fastest.” Multiplayer is new in Scholarship Edition and appropriately compliments the game considering how heavily influenced by mini-games it is.

Although it may be apt for what is undeniably a competitive and enjoyable multiplayer experience, the sheer number of mini-game-like tasks and segments attribute to an overall detached story-mode experience with the exorbitant amount of load screens delivering the killing blow. This is where Bully is hurt the most. There are so many short and menial tasks/missions that you take on, that the classes, which are inherently mini-games, don’t offer much to change the pace of things. So, you’re essentially engaging in mini-game after mini-game, with the cutscenes doing practically all the legwork to develop the story. Perhaps if the tasks were a little more involved, they wouldn’t seem so shallow in the greater scheme of things.

Think of the game as a large, but ultimately sparse, Christmas tree with a lot of ornaments on it. The ornaments are the missions, and the story is the scanty evergreen; it’s there, and it’s tying the missions together, but only barely. This is our major criticism of the game. Because even when you gain the ability to run amok in the town, only more mini-games and oversimplified tasks are opened to you. Like we said: If the missions had a little more breadth to them, they would probably do a better job of roping everything together.

Something else we have no choice but to dock points for are the visuals. The graphical glitches in the Xbox 360 version, which Rockstar acknowledged, aside, the game could look better for a next-gen release. Maybe the Gamecube re-release of Resident Evil spoiled us, but Bully could look tons better, even for the Wii. The visuals were pretty much unaltered going to the Wii, and although they got much better for the Xbox 360, they don’t hold a candle to nearly all the next-gen games currently available for the platform.

We know graphical superiority wasn’t a goal of the developers, and by those standards they hit the mark, but for all intents and purposes, it still is a next-gen project, and shadowing tricks here and there during the cutscenes aren’t going to make up for the sausage fingers on all the characters.

Bully: Scholarship Edition is a great game to simply pick up and play after a day of work, and for those who missed the opportunity to check it out on the PS2 should definitely give it a go. Its long-running laughs will undoubtedly provide you with hours of mature-themed hilarity. For those who have already played the original, it’s a safe bet that you won’t miss much if you skip out on this one. 

So the verdict is simple: If you’ve never played it, buy it; just don’t expect an engrossing experience. Simply expect to be entertained with a few genuine laughs.

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