Bully Scholarship Edition ISO

Bully Scholarship Edition [ISO]

Bully: Scholarship Edition is a re-release of one of the best PlayStation 2 games of 2006. Disappointingly, not everything went smoothly in the transition to the Xbox 360. What the game has gained in a year of graphical polish and mild renovation it has lost in disappointing technical misfires. Don't let that discourage you, though. Rockstar is best known for Grand Theft Auto, but Bully may well be its crowning achievement.

Once again Rockstar implores you to experience its unique vision of the world through the eyes of a tough guy with heart -- the sort of character you hope you could be, if the situation demanded it. Instead of a hardened gangster whose backbone was forged on the mean streets of Liberty City or San Andreas, the protagonist in this boy against world story is one Jimmy Hopkins, troublemaker extraordinaire.

Boy Meets World

Jimmy is basically a good kid, but life has dealt him plenty of difficult hands, and he's found himself in trouble more times than he can count, expelled out of any school that'd take him. He's not afraid to put up his fists to defend himself, but it's his drive to battle injustice, and his need to defend those around him, that lend Jimmy moral character and conviction.
That isn't to say that Jimmy is a modern-day knight in shining armor. Jimmy is not above the occasional prank and in fact lives for that stuff, and some of the best fun you'll have in Bully involves the sort of high-spirited mischief that abounds in coming-of-age stories. Instead of Grand Theft Auto's pistols, grenades and rocket launchers, you have slingshots, firecrackers and water balloons. Surprisingly, there's not a lot of difference between them, except for the level of violence.

Considering all the controversy surrounding the game's original release, it's worth noting the way that Bully handles violence. Rockstar's decision to use Bully as the title of the game is somewhat misleading. The game actively discourages you from causing trouble. Hitting girls, pranking younger children, even staying out past curfew is punished in-game by the powers that be, whether they be the prefects or local law enforcement. The jocks who push the nerds around are the bullies. The kids who attack a local homeless man are the bullies. The name "Bully," in fact, is representative of the forces of the world at large that prey upon the weak and defenseless, and they are the "bad guys."