If Rockstar was a real-life rock star who would it be? We’ve been racking our brains trying to work out this pointless query ourselves because we felt it would be a clever way to kick this review off, but as it’s been almost two weeks, and we’re still without an answer, we’re beginning to wish we didn’t bother. So instead we’re just going to draw a line under that and apologise for wasting a paragraph.

Let’s make no bones about it, basing a game in a boarding school, making your protagonist look like he’s just stepped off the set of Scum and calling your game Bully came as somewhat of a shock to the expecting GTA crowd. As gamers often do it was stamped with a question mark over its head and unsurprisingly it ended up winning a lot of them over – oh how we love the gaming audience!

Oddly enough, such was the ridiculous amount of titular farting about that took place with Bully, or Canis Canem Edit (which is apparently Latin for dog eat dog), the game’s very late and much hyped PS2 release, thanks to the release of yours truly (and that would be the Xbox 2 not X360 magazine) caused the game’s release to go generally unnoticed and an apparent Xbox version to get canned. Now this brings us to an interesting point: working on the assumption that most PS3 owners would have probably owned a PS2, and most of you reading this probably didn’t, many of us won’t be privy to handy conversion yardsticks with which to measure the refinement of this port. But don’t worry, because we do.

Bully garnered some pretty high scores when it was released, and having played through the 360 version it appears the game, despite some dubious-looking visuals, has made the transition to 360 pretty well. Boasting eight new missions, a few new classes (biology, music, math and geography) – which, ironically, you’re going to be trying your best to avoid during the game – and a larger wardrobe of clothes for your character (great), it wouldn’t be totally unfair to say that Bully: Scholarship Edition is a pretty idle port, but here’s the thing: Bully was a great game on the PS2, and it still proves to be a bloody great game on the 360 – a lazy, uninspired port of a game admittedly, but still great nonetheless.

The game tells the tale of young tearaway Jimmy Hopkins who, after numerous school expulsions and a criminal record, finds himself enrolled in the worst school in the country: Bullworth Academy – a school boasting a faculty of arms dealers, drug lords and career criminals, and this hierarchy of corruption has seemingly filtered itself all the way down to the teachers and pupils in the school.

It’s your mission to help the geeks of the school – basically anyone wearing a green tank top – protect them from the school bullies and earn respect through running errands for the differing cliques that populate the school. Most missions will involve protecting geeks, fighting bullies, breaking into lockers of bullies to help boost your notoriety around the school, and running smaller errands to unlock bonuses.

The lessons themselves take the form of mini-games, and are generally used as a form of punishment if you get caught playing truant by one of the Prefects who, incidentally, seemingly never seem to go to class (which might explain why whenever you try and start a conversation with any of them they come across as idiots). Later on, through completing the missions which are split into chapters, the game opens up, with Jimmy acquiring a skateboard or a pushbike by a harridan of a dinner lady to venture out into the neighbouring town – complete with its own fairground we might add – and complete tasks for the townsfolk while avoiding the long arm of the law.

Perhaps the game itself can best be described as a brilliant mix of GTA-style missions and cut-scenes and Shenmuestyle time-keeping, conversing, routines and structure (there‘s even a section where you’re taught new fighting techniques by an angry tramp). Bully, as a game, just feels a little bit more together then the GTA titles, a shade more linear and structured, which for some will be its appeal. It also has quite a sweet little story with a good message albeit told in traditional Rockstar fashion (but look, we wouldn‘t want it any other way). There are also hours of gameplay inside Bully and although the missions could have benefited from a little bit more variations, Rockstar’s charismatic humour, and its ability to drip feed you the brilliance and innovation of its games, allows Bully to grab your attention like an after school rumble – one that ends with the geeks winning, of course.

Stuart Hunt