Bully: Scholarship Edition

Bully: Scholarship Edition

Grand Theft Auto has assumed the mantle of "It's like X, but..." when describing games nowadays. Everything has to have the free-roaming, beat up anything, drive anything mentality to be a proper sandbox game, and yet most games fall on the wayside, championed by a few diehards while the main GTA franchise continues on unopposed. Not suprisingly, the most compelling GTA clone to come out in the last eight years was by GTA's developer, RockStar, and their "GTA, but in Boarding School" offering Bully. The version reviewed here is the much-improved Scholarship Edition, which uses the upgraded power of the 360 to touch up character models, sweeten backgrounds and increase draw distance.

What Rockstar did in Bully, though, was craft a great narrative. While they've always told stories, Bully pulls you through Jimmy's life as he tries to get by and earn the respect of his classmates, and with a unique and more importantly relevant timer/clock, and required missions, the game leads you through the sordid and Lord of the Flies-esque world of high school, and does it in an incisive and very funny series of missions.

The controls are standard fare for a Rockstar sandbox game; you'll recognize the configurations instantly and that level of familiarity makes actually playing the game relaxing. Music cues and dozens of unique voice actors are suitably distinctive and juvenile, and the game puts a lot of stress on not making itself so open that you feel lost. Missions have structure and fall organically into each other.

Bully is, most of all, funny. It has laugh-out-loud moments and is full of heart. The game will ring true to anyone who went through high school as an outcast, and the sweet satisfaction of the main story's resolution, despite the deus ex machina denoumont, will leave you smiling to yourself. The game does have shortcomings, though: Most alternate weapons in the game will be used solely to get their related achievements and then filed away. Collect-a-thons are back, unfortunately, a yoke Rockstar seems to never be able to get off its back, but thankfully escort missions are few and far between. No quick-warp between the world's four areas is a major letdown, as there's nothing to see in its "loading tunnels," and load screens are still present from time to time.

Graphics: Not the prettiest ever, but certainly competent for such a broad and deep game. 4.
Sound: The voice acting of the main character and the variations on the main theme are all fantastic. 4.
Controls: Breaks no new ground, but doesn't trip itself up with obscure configurations either. 3.
Tilt: Great story and acting come together in an idealized, predatory boarding school to paint a bitterly sarcastic take on growing up. 4.
Overall (not an average): 4.