Bully (PS2)

Bully for the Playstation 2 was developed by Rockstar Vancouver and published by Rockstar Games October 17th of 2006.

• User Interface

• Pros: The User Interface on Bully was fairly easy to use. A lot of the time I did find myself fumbling to find which button was the right one for what I was trying to do. I liked picking the lockers and stuff, and the fact that they usually highlighted where you needed to stand to do certain things was cool. Other very good things they did was to make the world easy to get around in. If you jump high enough to reach the top of the fence, generally you can climb over it. Or, there are other things you can climb too. You can go almost anywhere, but it tends to become useless. The maps were very nicely constructed and polished.
  
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• Cons: The whole thing about sneaking around was cool for a little while, but I got tired of it. Especially when you get caught right when you're about to finish a mission. The skateboarding I found frustrating as well, because I was trying to run away, and then I'd have to like hop off the board to open a door and that's when, of course, the camera angle decides its gonna spin 90 degrees which makes me accidentally go the wrong direction away from the door. Yeah, camera angles definitely got old.
• Graphic Detail
• Pros: In most games, you tend to find one or two spots where everything just gets all crazy, rendering-wise. I didn't come across any spots where I was looking through a wall, or through the back of someone's head. But, that's because of what they did with the cameras. Also, since it was a PS2 game, its possible I didn't get the full graphical hit that would come with playing it on a better system, so I'm going to refrain from saying too much about it. It looked just fine for the PS2. The screenshots from GameSpy looked better than the game itself. Lot more anti-aliasing issues than shown.
  
• Cons: When you get close to a building, it forces you to spin if you're looking back on yourself so you're not looking through the inside of the building at yourself. Why didn't they just make this transparent or something? I got caught more than once because of the camera issues.
• Storyline
• Pros: The storyline was long enough that I doubt many of you would complain about it being too short. Also, it did include seasons as the story progressed, so the graphics changed to snow and such. The storyline wasn't linear either, which was nice. It had a nice thing where if you wanted to do some missions, you could, but you didn't have to. If you want to hate the nerds, go ahead. Don't help them out, instead just beat the crap out of them and take their money. Man, some of them were trying to be hideous.
  
• Cons: Maybe some people are into the whole going back and doing things over again, but I really didn't enjoy revisiting my high school years. I thought the other students were all a little too agressive. I became frustrated. I was trying to do a mission for them, and they were all like, "I hate you, Jimmy, F*** you." And it wasn't just one nerd saying it, it was like all of them, saying just one or two lines. You'd think there'd be more than just two lines for them to say about hating you so much.
• Fun Factor
• Pros: Not for me.
• Cons: I guess maybe this game wasn't targeting me, but I really didn't enjoy it. Most of the time, I had to keep telling myself, "It'll get better soon, just play it a litlte more and you'll unlock something really cool, I'm sure." I tried to stick with it, but cherry bombs, sticky things, marbles, and everything else just didn't do it for me. And, as I've reiterated several times, Bad Camera Angles Ruin Games. That's BCARG.
  

The Wrap-Up! This game, while polished and clean, tends to be frustrating because of camera angles and unsatisfying combat/bullying. It is intense to run away from the good guys/bad guys, right up until you get caught because the camera angle swings around to some awkward angle. That's when you breathe the Last Sigh. The sigh the signifies that this game will not be being played much longer if it keeps up this bad behavior. Severe Intensity must include Perfect Gameplay or it will achieve Complete Disappointment. And that's where I put this game. Intensely Disappointing.

Definitely worth a rent.