Two flawed games.
 
I have just finished trying to play Mercenaries 2 and Bully: Scholarship Edition on my 360 and my god, both of those games are terrible. I knew what I was getting myself into with Mercenaries but after enjoying the first one I thought I owed it to Pandemic, God rest their souls, to give it a shot. Got to say, glad they got closed down. Actually I will refrain from sticking to that comment until I have got my hands on The Saboteur which is looking quite promising, but then again, so was Mercs 2. For as bad as Mercs 2 looks, it plays worse. The AI was a poor excuse for "last-gen" AI let alone trying to compete with the big boys. The animation was shoddy and the voice acting was like being spoon fed last Christmas' turkey's entrails. All together it was a painful experience and last no longer than 40 minutes.
 
The second game, Bully, is one that is dear to my heart as I loved it when I completed it on the PS2 when it was first released. I was pleased a few years ago to hear that it was coming to the 360 and even more pleased that I caught it on the PS2 when I  heard that it was a buggy excuse for a game. I believed, and still did till a few days ago, that these were all minor bugs and things that Rockstar could easily patch to make right. I eventually learned the hard way. Bully: Scholarship Edition is a piss poor attempt of a port from Rockstar still riddled with bugs. After putting a few hours into it, I managed to switch it off and salvage a few of those fond memories which I have hidden deep within myself, away from the parts of my brain which have registered that I have played the 360 version. Not only does it look extremely dated, as most Rockstar games some time after release do, it's buggy flickering lines of missing code ruined what I can remember as an engrossing and humorous story through a different but strangely GTA familiar setting. It is such a shame to see this game like this and it appears that the Bully has finally been caught with his pants down ready to take his lashing from the cold belt that is the ever more expectant video gamer.

Two flawed games.
 
I have just finished trying to play Mercenaries 2 and Bully: Scholarship Edition on my 360 and my god, both of those games are terrible. I knew what I was getting myself into with Mercenaries but after enjoying the first one I thought I owed it to Pandemic, God rest their souls, to give it a shot. Got to say, glad they got closed down. Actually I will refrain from sticking to that comment until I have got my hands on The Saboteur which is looking quite promising, but then again, so was Mercs 2. For as bad as Mercs 2 looks, it plays worse. The AI was a poor excuse for "last-gen" AI let alone trying to compete with the big boys. The animation was shoddy and the voice acting was like being spoon fed last Christmas' turkey's entrails. All together it was a painful experience and last no longer than 40 minutes.
 
The second game, Bully, is one that is dear to my heart as I loved it when I completed it on the PS2 when it was first released. I was pleased a few years ago to hear that it was coming to the 360 and even more pleased that I caught it on the PS2 when I  heard that it was a buggy excuse for a game. I believed, and still did till a few days ago, that these were all minor bugs and things that Rockstar could easily patch to make right. I eventually learned the hard way. Bully: Scholarship Edition is a piss poor attempt of a port from Rockstar still riddled with bugs. After putting a few hours into it, I managed to switch it off and salvage a few of those fond memories which I have hidden deep within myself, away from the parts of my brain which have registered that I have played the 360 version. Not only does it look extremely dated, as most Rockstar games some time after release do, it's buggy flickering lines of missing code ruined what I can remember as an engrossing and humorous story through a different but strangely GTA familiar setting. It is such a shame to see this game like this and it appears that the Bully has finally been caught with his pants down ready to take his lashing from the cold belt that is the ever more expectant video gamer.

their time has past.... both before they were even released

I seem to be the only one but I have a lot of love for Merceneries 2, true it has crappy framerate, terrible animation, more bugs than code and terrible voice acting (amongst other problems) but for my sins I had a lot of fun shooting people and blowing stuff up. I will say proudly, I like Merceneries 2! even though its crap.

Bully is another game im trying to play but its hard since I got the Wii version, it was the only one I could find when Rebel FM was doing a game club on it, and I find it almost unplayable. Part of it is the fact that it feels "last gen" in that it lacks some smoothness to the gameplay but thats easily overlook and took me about 30 minutes to get used to but I cant get used to the controls which ask me to swing the nunchuck for left punch and wii remote for right punch except it very rarely works so I cant win most fights because he stops hitting people. Add to that the general awkwardness of movement due to the wii remote and nunchuk (or perhaps just the button assignments) means playing that game is more of a chore than it is fun, its really annoying because I know it can be really fun but I cant get their. Im going try and find a PS2 version or maybe even the 360 version and just live with the bugs.

If you can play through the bugs of Mercs 2 and spend some time on the Wii version of Bully Pazy, then playing the 360 version should be a breeze- maybe even enjoyable. Like I said, I loved the PS2 version when it came out but that maybe because it was 2006 and the graphics, animation etc were at a viable level. I think it's ridiculous that a company can release a game of that quality two years later. It's a difficult time gap because it is way too early to be thinking about a remake but still it should never have made it out the doors like it is. Such a shame because it has such a great story and setting, something which, if you can play through the bugs, you may really enjoy.

I loved Bully: Scholarship Edition. Playing a port of a PS2 game on the 360 tends not to work out though. Games just tend to feel aged that way, and your nostalgic fondness for it disappears. Sad, really.