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Bully: Scholarship Edition
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar Vancouver
Genre: Action
Release: March 3, 2008
Platforms: Playstation 2, Xbox 360, Wii
Reviewer: Eric
 When Bully first came out on the Playstation 2 not a whole lot of people gave
it a chance. With video games being more popular than ever Rockstar Games has
decided to give this game a second chance. Bully: Scholarship Edition is more
than just a directors cut. Everything looks a whole lot better and enough of new
missions have been added, making the games length a whole lot longer.
You take control of 15 year old Jimmy Hopkins, a delinquent that has been kicked
out of half a dozen schools. His mother and step father decide to drop Jimmy off
at Bullworth Academy while they take an extended trip, lasting for a year. Jimmy
is not stuck in a school with a ton of problems. This might sound like the place
for Jimmy, but he can’t afford to get into too much trouble any more.
Bully at first seems like a boring game. You are confined in the schools grounds
for the first part of the game. Some of the more challenging events happen
during this part of the game too. I had to re-play one of the first missions
over a dozen times. If it wasn’t for the glitches in the games (Rockstar has
just patched the game on 3/21/08) I might still be stuck on this mission.
The game plays a lot like Grand Theft Auto in ways, minus all the blood, sex and
violence. You have classes during the more, two per day, side missions and then
the games main missions that need to be completed to progress in the game. Later
on, when you can travel outside of the campus, you can do other things like bike
races, delivering papers and playing mini games at the local carnival.
 When you play through Bully make sure you complete all of the side quests before
you try to beat a chapter. I found myself missing out on a lot of parts in this
game and I am not sure if I can ever go back and do some of these missions
again. It sounds easy to do this, but some of the quests, that aren’t part of
the main story, are the same yellow as the main ones. It’s hard to figure out,
but if you read the mission names you shouldn’t have a hard time.
During the game you can gain the respect of all the cliques in school and make
some love with different classmates. No that doesn’t mean you can take them back
to your dorm room, you need to ravish them with a present and then you get to
kiss them. Since Rockstar knows that same sex couples exist Jimmy can go ahead
and kiss both boys and girls.
If you want to be a bully around campus then you can do so through the easy pop
up screen. You can either be nice to somebody or say negative comments towards
them. As you progress through your classes you’ll be able to kiss a lot sooner
or say meaner things to people. This is very beneficial if the hall monitors are
chasing after you, but just like other parts in the game you won’t be able to do
this until later in the game.
Classes in Bully are not mandatory, but you should do your best to attend them
as you gain unlockable items and Jimmy gains better stats (bullying or being a
ladies man). Some of the classes are quite fun, English was my favorite out of
them. If you fail a class you can go back at a later time and try again, when
the game lets you. Rockstar does let you pause the game during classes so if you
wanted to cheat you can.
 To complete some of the games missions you do need to go to class. In ways
Rockstar is trying to give us a statement here, if you don’t go to class you
can’t complete life. Wait, what the hell am I saying? Any way if you don’t go to
class you’ll be chased and a good amount of quests won’t be available.
The fighting system in Bully is simple. One button attacks while another does a
grapple. It is a little more complex than Grand Theft Auto which is a great.
There are certain ways to unlock more attacks throughout the game so don’t worry
if your only attack is a simple punch in the beginning of the game. Going to
wrestling class will help out so don’t skip that class. Also you might want to
consider helping out the homeless person on campus, he knows a few things when
it comes to fighting.
Scholarship Edition also offers multiplayer mode that is only offline, between
two players. There is no way to share records or anything so it seems kind of
pointless to play these lame matches. Ten games are available. You can play as
either Jimmy or Gary. Rockstar supposedly ran out of time, but at least they
teased us by putting this version of the multiplayer in. Better than nothing,
right?
Final Verdict
Bully: Scholarship Edition might have had a few problems when it first came out
with all its glitches, but things are fixed (hopefully). This game is a real
good game if you give it a chance. At first it might seem boring and a bit
challenging, but after beating the first two missions you’ll start to enjoy the
game a lot. Pick this game up; it really is one of the better games Rockstar has
made in a long time.
Rating
8.50 out of 10
bully: Scholarship Edition Trailer
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