Bully: Scholarship Edition

I bought this one a long time ago and really wanted to play it. Rockstar have a habit of creating games I like and I really wanted to dive in but for some reason, I kept putting it off like some kind of massive project that I didn’t want to start.

This was stupid because the game isn’t actually that long and, it terms of quality deliverance, it’s not actually that good either.

You play as Jimmy whatshisface, the new kid at a boarding school after apparently being expelled from every other school he has attended. He immediately makes sort of friends with that guy Gary who you can identify as a twat from the get go. You also meet Russell, the local meathead who is only capable of saying his own name.

The basic story follows Jimmy who, instead of being a bully as per the game title, actually makes friends with all the social groups and kisses all the girls (if you chose to play for the achievements that is.)

As well as following the main storyline, you have to attend classes much like any school. These are basically mini-games that involve you having to do some Math, Science, English, etc, related exercise that makes you reflect on how difficult real school is. Once you’ve done both classes, you have very little time to do anything else before curfew, especially as the town is a minute’s bike ride away. A minute translates to an hour in game and this is one of my big criticisms. It doesn’t feel like you have enough time to do anything because like every other 15 year old, as soon as the clock strikes 2am, you immediately pass out.

The visual graphics are what you would expect of a sandbox game at the time, however the music is proper get-on-your-tits annoying. It’s repetitive, irritating, more annoying and lots of other mean words. The trouble is volume is kind of required for a game with dialogue so you are forced to listen to it. You also give a lot of involuntary verbal taunts when you are roaming and these become very tiring after Jimmy has mugged off someone for the 700^th time.

My biggest bug bear in any game is the control system unless of course it works. Bully doesn’t. I don’t know who came up with the idea but the camera is the right stick and the movement is the left stick and the two sticks don’t interact which means manoeuvring Jimmy to go in the direct you want him to while looking somewhere else is nigh on impossible. Thankfully it wasn’t so horrifically shit that I couldn’t get used to it. If the game is unintentionally difficult to play, that’s a major fail.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 38 Achievements

There is nothing tragically hard about the Bully achievements but some of them are ridiculously monotonous. The most monotonous award goes to either of the distance covered achievements. There is one for the bike, the skateboard and for walking. Whichever one you don’t focus on will be left at the end. Mine was the bike and I was required to just ride around for ages until this unlocked. You have to complete 100km on the Bike which is ridiculous considering how small the sandbox is.

You also have to buy all the in game items of clothing. This costs more money that you get from completing all the missions and errands in the game meaning that you have to grind out the same lawn mowing or paper route mini-games until you have enough money.

Grinding pretty much sums up all of the achievements here. The worst one is the one for picking 50 flowers. You need a flower to kiss a girl. You can only carry ten flowers at a time. You have to kiss ten different girls using flowers before you can pick another ten flowers. Rinse and repeating this process is a pain in the ass. The biggest pain in the ass in the game. By far. There is also a little thing that is extra annoying if you don’t know about it. When you complete the art classes, girls won’t take flowers from you because they already like you. This means you can only give flowers to one boy after this which would make the process all the more annoying to complete.

The last achievement I unlocked was for 100% completion because generally speaking, everything else you have to do is a requirement. There are also lots of hidden requirements which make this achievement a real fuck ass to complete. Thankfully it’s not missable and there is enough help around to get everyone through it.

Downloadable Content – N/A

I would say that once I got over the controls, I enjoyed Bully for about two days. It was my sheer bloody-mindedness that got me to the 100% completion and I can foresee no reason for me to revisit the game again.