A 
Review by Shodan2020
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Ah, High School Days... times spent dodging trouble caused, finding that special someone, and egging the occasional stranger. You can do all of this and more in Rockstar Vancouver's Bully: Scholarship Edition. Which is an update to their first offering of Bully for the PS2.
"If you can dodge a wrench... you can dodge a ball."
Graphically, there has been a huge update from the PS2 version. Buildings, characters and items are much more detailed and smooth.
Bully plays like GTA's budding adolescent brother. If you've played a GTA game you'll find a lot of similarities in Bully. You will notice that all the "crimes" you can commit have been relegated to misdemeanors. When you pick fights you knock people out, and not beat them to death, similarly, you can steal bikes, but not cars. And it's so much fun to knock someone off a moped with a well placed egg. Similarly, you can do things as you see fit, if you want to go to class and make Jimmy better, go for it. You can also completely ignore class and spend all day wandering around town or at the carnival or running errands for the townies. I had a peculiar penchant for being truant to my classes because I was too busy making out with nerdy co-eds, namely Beatrice... but that's just how I roll. :)
Escaping from the trouble that you may find yourself in is very easy to do as Jimmy runs faster than anyone who isn't driving a car, and he never becomes exhausted from running.
There are 6 different sects in Bully, or gangs, if you will. You have the Jocks, the Nerds, The Preps, the Greasers, the Bullies, and the Townies. Each clique has their own look and their own fitting musical theme. The Greasers have this classic 50's sock hop sound, while the Nerds have this rad '80s New Wave music beat. You'll be able to tell which group is chasing you by what sort of music is playing. The voicework is also very well done, every voice fits the person speaking it from Rudy the Wino-Santa to the fly-infested whale of a cook, Edna.
The size of the game world in Bully is small, it's 1/4 the size of GTA4's map, but for what it lacks in size it makes up in content and detail. I believe there are over 300 different types of clothes for Jimmy to wear, he can dress like a prep, jock, nerd.. almost anything. He can also get tattoos, different haircuts and much more. There are plenty of shops and items to collect. What's more, if you pass your geography class, most of the collectable item sets (rubber bands, garden gnomes and G&G cards) will appear on your map, making collecting them much easier.
Classes are generally fun to go to though and each involves a different type of minigame which gets progressively harder the farther you get into the class. Everyone can pass the first class of each discipline, but the last class of each are pretty challenging. After each level of the class, Jimmy gains a new skill or upgrade. Gym will make you a better shot with your slingshot and teach you new fighting moves (as will Hobo training), Art makes you more attractive to women, allowing you to forego gifts to get them to make out with you at it's completion. Chemistry allows you to create firecrackers, stinkbombs, and itching powder from your dorm room... etc. The missions are also a lot of fun to perform and some are quite memorable. Helping Rudy the Hobo Santa run the corporate Santa Claus out of Bullworth, sabotaging the home football game by dressing up as the Bullworth Mascot, and going on a panty raid in the Girls' Dorm for the Gym Coach were a few of my favorites.
As you progress through the game and pass classes, your dorm room gains all these different trophies signifying your successes and deeds. Your room gets transformed from a bare, rat infested hovel into a wonderous monument to your success.
Probably the only complaints I have with the game is with the music class being made unfairly hard due to the 360's finicky L and R triggers. I couldn't pass Music 3 for the life of me. Also, there are a lot of short loading screens.. anytime you pass from an indoor setting to an outdoor one and anytime you accept a mission. These are all slight annoyances and don't amount to much of a gripe against the game as a whole.
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