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Graduating is a bitch. I’m about halfway through my last semester of college, and I’ve got a bad case of wistfulness. I miss high school. Driving around my small town before gas prices skyrocketed. Listening to music on CDs I actually paid for. Having a disposable income.

Apparently, Rockstar Games misses high school, too, considering they recently re-released a "Scholarship Edition" of its 2006 game Bully for Xbox 360 and Wii. (You might remember it being mildly controversial.) Boasting eight new missions, four new classes and other add-ons, school seems more fun than it was the first time around. (Ain’t that always the case?) Players take on the role of Bullworth Academy student and Bruce Willis-circa-Moonlighting lookalike Jimmy Hopkins, a perpetual reject with a penchant for catching beatdowns.

Bully essentially plays like a more family-friendly version of Rockstar’s flagship Grand Theft Auto series. While players can’t kill people, they can still live out violent fantasies in a non-linear story rife with profanity and explosions. And, just like GTA, Bully is a hell of a lot of fun. The gameplay is varied and strong throughout; mini-games abound in the form of classes, errands and even arcade challenges. Every so often, it can get tedious, especially as the game map expands beyond campus, but overall, there’s a decent mix of fighting, exploring and puzzle-solving.

360 enthusiasts looking for a graphics upgrade will be disappointed — the game still looks a PS2 release, although the new biology class looks neat/gory. The overall freshness of the gameplay experience, however, more than compensates. The blunt, critical eye Bully casts on the traumas of high school — some of those preppy jokes certainly stuck with this La Salle College High School graduate — also lends the game some charm. The 360 port is glitchy, though, so be sure to save as often as possible until Rockstar puts out an online patch to prevent crashes.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Arts, Video Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.