A Variety of Bad Gameplay Packaged into 1 Game
I have never been a huge fan of Rockstar-developed games. I tolerated GTA: Vice City as much as the next person, but have always found more to dislike in their games than I liked. My short 2 hours with Bully was the culmination of many frustrating elements all rolled into one package. Since I quit the game so early, I cannot intelligently comment on whether the meat of the game gets any better further down the road. However, I will attempt to summarize the barrage of frustration that brought me to the brink below to give fair warning to any and all that want to give this game a chance:
-Load times: I can't believe that the port of a PS2 game onto a modern console (even the Wii) has not improved any of the load times. This practice needs to stop and the developer should be ashamed.
-Wii Controls: Fighting requires you to flail the controller around for every punch you throw. While this is novel at first, the imprecise controls turn this into a frustrating chore very quickly.
-Fighting against the clock: Everything you do has to adhere to a strictly planned schedule that actively punishes you and puts obstacles in your way for deviating from that schedule. For an open world game, this seems totally counterintuitive. While someone could argue that it fits the story and still gives the player a choice, I think it made the game feel like work, which isn't very fun at all.
-Sneaking Missions: The Metal Gear-esque elements that require you to avoid the campus police were the nail in the coffin for me. I hated memorizing guard patterns in MGS, and I still hate doing it in Bully.
After plowing through this much pain and frustration over the course of 2 hours, I am very proud that I promptly removed the game from my Wii and sold it to some other unsuspecting fool. I can only hope that anyone reading this review does not waste the 2 hours of their life playing this game as I did.
0 Comments