The First 10 Minutes: Bully

• Manager
• Friday, March 21, 2008 | 7:35 PM
• 13 comments

Xbox 360 Wii

Bully: Scholarship Edition had quite the topical release last week, after tons of people had issues running the game. A patch for the Xbox 360 version was released yesterday, and what's better than showing how the introduction of the game looks now? Even though there's no official details yet, gamers are reporting that the framerate is a bit better now and the freezing occurs less often. Keep in mind that I edited out some segments, specially the loading times - as those 10 minutes would have been a lot more with them.

Bully was released on Playstation 2 back in 2006, and the game immediately created rage in schools all over the world. After Rockstar's previous games, like Grand Theft Auto, teacher's (and a bunch of lawyers) feared the worst. Bully has little in common with the GTA series though, as there is little blood or guns in the game.

You are a 15 year old student, Jimmy Hopkins, who is left off at the Bullworth Academy by his parents. You choose to be popular or hated, to talk nicely or angry at other students. During days, you have the option to attend classes where you spend time on various mini-games, an option that also is playable in multi-player mode against your friends. Outside class, you help students or teacher with their problems through missions.

The graphics is a mix of great textures and sloppy bushes and environments. The indoor's in the school can look great, while some things, like bushes, can look worse when you walk outside. The framerate can dip below 30 fps at certain points, visible during the intro in the video below, but the patch is supposed to have made some positive adjustments to this.

The fighting engine in Bully is rather simple, but I still enjoyed all the moments where the player got to kick some slug ass. It is mostly hand-to-hand combat we are talking about here, but you can also use objects to take down your enemy.
All in all, Bully is a fun game and definitely worth a try. The graphics and last-generation momentums can turn people away from the game, but if you can co-op with that, Bully is not far from being just as satisfying as GTA is. What is better to cure the Grand Theft Auto 4 lust than playing a game like this?

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The First 10 Minutes