Overall: overall i liked this game. One thing i like to mention as i am a game score whore myself is the achievements here are very rewarding, they come pretty steadily they come here and there every so often. I liked the feeling of a kid version of the gran theft auto genre. the story line is good i like the conflict the game has. i will say that the ending was not what i wanted from the game but i look forward to a sequel. the game length is good and you don't feel like you are doing the same thing over and over. not much else to say but its a gran theft auto game. hivbia out Gameplay: This is a numbed down game from gran theft auto, the good thing is rock star makes it. now you think a kid version of gran theft auto would be less likable, but that's not the case here not in my opinion anyway. as it does have the same feel it sure has its own feel Graphics: I will start out to say i am happy this game was put out again even though is was originally debuted on the ps2 so the graffics are upped as well as the game play. visually though its amazing yes it is put out by rock star which normally means the graffics are sub par but because this.games scale isn't as large as gran theft auto the graffics are surprisingly good, Sound: again this is put out by rocks star so listening to gran theft auto explains the audio. something i would like to say is that i do like the voice acting everyone has there own personality. one person i would like to give props to is the main actor definitely a distinguished voice.
Overall: When Rockstar came out with Grand Theft Auto it really created it's own genre. The open-world, sandbox style of gameplay proved to be quite popular with people and the series has gone on to garner great critical acclaim and sell TONS of games. I have always found the GTA games to be a bit overrated, but they are all still worth owning & playing. After the great success of the series, many companies started to copy Rockstar and put out open-world games themselves. Well I guess it's Rockstar's turn to rip themselves off as Bully is an obvious 'teenage' version of Grand Theft Auto. Gameplay: If you have played any of the GTA games from the previous generation, you will know what to expect with Bully. The storyline is very different, of course. But the gameplay is almost exactly the same. You play the game as a 15 yr. old kid who gets dumped off at a strict boarding school by your parents because you have had some difficulty behaving in the past. Just like in GTA's city, the school in Bully has certain factions. Instead of Italians, Latinos, Russians, Blacks you have Bullies, Nerds, Jocks, Greasers, & Townies. And just like in GTA, you go through the game's story mode working for all these factions as different times all while looking out for your own agenda. Each faction will have different missions for you to do and it usually involves messing with one of the other factions. Along the way, you slowly work your way up the ladder and you are basically running the school at one point. Like I mentioned before, this type of game structure should make fans of GTA right at home. The whole time I played through the story mode, I felt like I was playing GTA 3 for 13 yr. olds. There isn't much swearing in the game and you can't kill anyone. There are no hookers, pimps, gangs, you can't drive, etc. It's basically like Rockstar thought they were getting a lot of heat for their GTA series, so they would make a game people under 18 could enjoy (even though everyone knows that people underage play GTA).
I don't mean to make that sound like a negative because the game is quite fun. In fact, I like the storyline here better than any of the GTA games on the PS2. And the missions have WAY more variety than ANY of the GTA games I have played. That includes the newer Grand Theft Auto 4. The game definitely has a certain charm to it that is hard not to deny. The game has many different things you can due while you are not working on the story missions. You can go to a carnival, go shopping, mow lawns for $, participate in bike races, kiss girls, run errands for people that will pay you $, but the biggest non-storyline related gameplay feature in the game are the cl@!%#*!es.
Each day you have to attend cl@!%#*!es, and you must be in them on time or you are truant. There are several different cl@!%#*!es, such as English, Math, Geography, and so on. When you go to one of these cl@!%#*!es, you then start a mini-game of sorts. Depending on how you do in the mini-game, you will either p@!%#*! or fail and have to eventually do it again. You get a bunch of nice little bonuses for completing each cl@!%#*! and the mini-games are actually fun. Some of them are irritating (Art cl@!%#*! comes to mind), but I really liked doing most of them even though you don't have to, technically. You can skip every cl@!%#*! if you want, but if the 'prefects' (school ground security staff) or cops catch you then you will get busted. To be honest, it would be in your best interest to do the cl@!%#*!es anyways, as you get lots of useful items and skills and the most of the games are fun.
You go to cl@!%#*! twice a day with a break for lunch in-between. The rest of the time in the day is yours to do whatever you want. Just like in GTA, this is where the open-world gameplay comes in. If you want to advance the story along, you can. If you don't, then you can go do some of the fun activities that the game lets you do. You do have a cerfew (which is 11pm) and if you aren't in bed by 1am, you literally p@!%#*! out where you stand, which gets you caught and you lose some of your items.
While the game is a fun and mostly positive experience, there are some glaring flaws that can't be ignored. The most obvious is the shocking amount of glitches in this Xbox 360 version. I had the game lock-up on me multiple times. I have my character get stuck in the ground without being able to move, so I had to restart from a save. As I was riding on my skateboard once, my character kept glitching in and out with his face replacing the back of his head and vice versa. Some of the achievements are very glitchy, which is obviously frustrating. These are just some of the instances where a frustrating glitch would take me out of the gameplay experience. This is obviously unacceptable and I know Rockstar released a patch fixing some glitches early on, but they obviously didn't fix them all.
Then you get to the game itself. Some of the controls are annoying, such as having to press my 'A' button over and over just to run faster. The handling on the skateboard and bikes can be twitchy. The game shows you a load screen for almost everything you do. The camera is god-awful at times, especially when you are indoors. And while I mentioned that the game is fun due to the different kinds of missions you can do, it still gets a little repetitive. It's not as bad as GTA, but it's there. The stuff you can do on your own time, which was really cool at the beginning of the game start to get a bit old after awhile and you basically get in a routine of a daily grind. You go to cl@!%#*!, kill some time, go to another cl@!%#*!, do a story mission or two, maybe do some other stuff, go to sleep, rinse and repeat about five thousand times. It does make it frustrating to try to get stuff done when the in-game clock moves WAY too fast, especially since you have to be in bed by a certain time.
Overall, the game is fun to play and any fan of GTA will probably like it. Almost everything you can do in GTA, there is a teenage version of it in this game. Ultimately, that is what Bully will leave with you: a feeling that you just played Grand Theft Auto made for kids. It's fun for adults, but it doesn't do enough to seperate itself from it's 'big brother'. Graphics: Once you boot this game up, you will obviously notice this game was not made for this generation of consoles. Of course, if you are even playing this game you will probably already know this was a Playstation 2 title. And it certainly looks the part. You can tell Rockstar worked on the visuals a bit, but they are pretty poor overall. The good part is that you probably know this going into the game, so you shouldn't be expecting anything better. The game has a nice visual style even if the technology has long since p@!%#*!ed this game by. Sound: I will commend Rockstar for doing another great job with the voice acting in a game. There are no big names here, but the game is outstanding in this area. There isn't much to say about the music, but it does the job. There are no licensed tracks like there is in the GTA games, but it's not something I really thought about while playing the game. Suggestions: It's too bad that Rockstar released Bully in this sort of condition. This is a very good game hiding behind crappy visuals and numerous glitches. While I can excuse the dated graphics due to this being a budget game and I knew about it going in, there is no excuse for releasing a game that doesn't work properly. Because of that, the game feels like a quick and dirty port job to get people to shell out some more $. If you have played the PS2 version, don't bother with this Xbox 360 version, as the new missions aren't worth you buying this again. The game is fun and any fan of the Grand Theft Auto series will probably really get into it. I just feel it's more of a rental than a purchase due to the short length of the game and the unfortunate bugs that really hamper your experience with the game.
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