Wedgies, stink bombs but no friends...

BULLY: SCHOLARSHIP EDITION

The problem with buying old games is that doing this can be a bit of a minefield. There are alot of games that had their original hype planted SOMEwhere in the promise of good online play, but then never really sold. Or perhaps it sold and has been made redundant by the masses of truly great games that are now out there. Anyway, the problem with this is that, with alot of these games, trying to find and play them online is like looking for the existance of Sweet Jesus H. Fucking Christ himself. This also makes any multiplayer achievements literally impossible. The only thing that comes from this is my permanent annoyance.

Anyway, I had a bit of spare cash and decided to buy an old game. Obviously I had a rather large selection with which to choose from, however, because of the reasons outlined above, I decided on one that was going to be a strictly non multi-player game.

It was around this time that I received a polite little email telling me that Bully: Scholarship Edition was available, new, for £10. Having had various conversations with people in the past about this game, I quickly established that it was probably worth a punt and so I ordered. A couple of weeks later (fuck you christmas), it finally arrived and I was able to shove it in and give it a bash.

So was it worth the punt? Most definately. This is an enjoyable little romp that is best played if you have not much happening for a while because of... oh I dunno... having no money because of, say, christmas? Anyway, you play a 15 year old boy named Jimmy who is packed off to bording school whilst his slag of a mother runs off on honeymoon for a year. So you have to try and settle into bording school life, trying to stay out of trouble (uh huh), getting on with your lessons (sure), and making friends (yes, right). As you can imagine, things start off badly and then gradually get worse.

So anyway, this game isn't without its flaws. Having to mash A to travel anywhere (running, skateboard or bike) but nowhere near as bad as the camera. In most games, when you move around with the left stick your character moves in all directions whilst looking at a focal point somewhere in front of you. The right stick is where you are able to move your vision around. This is a formula that has worked for many years now, so why try and fuck around with it?

The main problem is that the left stick tries to do both of these things (a lá Spyro) with the left stick, but still give the right stick the ability to move the camera. Therefore, it becomes impractical and practically impossible to do both at once, otherwise you will end up doing silly little loops, before being beaten up. This goes against every gaming atom in my entire body and is very much annoying.

But having got past this issue, the game is actually very enjoyable. When I play a game, I love the fact that I can have the ability to "do/see/collect everything" in the entire game. I am one of life's natual horders (which is why I never sell my games etc) and this game very much tickles my MEIT'SMINE bones. There are several items which you can collect, from Rubber Bands to G&G Cards, but what I like about these is the fact that, should you complete all the Geography classes, you will actually have the option to show you where these all are on the map.

This is a fabulous idea and one that has me ferreting around until the early hours looking for the bloody things! This, coupled with the fact that pretty much all the achievements are VERY much possible to get, in exchange for a little bit of hard work make this a very worthy game to add to my collection. And thankfully, not a friend to have to play this with in sight.