Bully: Scholarship Edition is a very well executed concept that's plagued by the same nonsense that damaged Grand Theft Auto. It would have gotten a higher review if it didn't crash all the time and if the buttons did what it said on the screen they would do.

Basically, the plot of Bully is that you're an anti-social little miscreant sent to boarding school, where you proceed to attempt to take over the school in its entirety. Despite the fact that the game is called "Bully," you are apparently attempting to stop bullying at all costs. You immediately befriend the nerd clique and fight off the various jocks and preps that are antagonizing the nerds.

There are various "Factions" of characters in the game. The nerds all dress like nerds and hang out around the library (which they guard with technological weapons like rotating spud guns). The jocks dress in letter jackets, hang around the gym, and punch any nerds they see. The preps wear sweater vests, hang around the mansion at the end of campus, and perform psychological warfare on the other factions, etc. There are 5 factions in all (nerds, jocks, preps, greasers, and townies). Each "semester" ends with a Faction Challenge, which will grant you that faction's hideout as a base of operations when completed. You can spend the night in any of the hideouts you've won, as long as you make it back for class in the morning.

The game exists as a series of "days," each roughly 15 minutes long. In the morning, you go two classes. Each class grants some sort of bonus to the game. Gym teaches you how to fight, English teaches you how to flirt and taunt, Geography unlocks things on your map, etc. You may skip class (as long as you're not busted for truancy) but I recommend going because the class mini-games are enjoyable and the bonuses are real. Except for Music and Biology, they give you clothing.

After class in the afternoon you're free to tackle the missions. The only problem is, there's no description of what the mission is beforehand, and you can't choose to reject any missions, so you'll find yourself accepting missions that cause you to lose respect of the factions you like. The game is set up to work like a free-form decision-driven game, then all the decisions are taken out. It was very disappointing. I was hoping that I could ally myself with the nerds and greasers and eventually take down the jocks, but it seems that each semester has a theme of "impress this particular faction" so the whole faction respect system is nonsense.

Anyway, the missions are actually fairly varied, the developers did a good job of not falling prey to the "5 dozen fetch quests and you're done" thing that's all too common these days. One mission involves fetching date materials for the ugly lunch lady. She wants perfume, make-up, and some sedatives to drug her date so she can take him to a hotel. Once you gather these things, your task is to hide in a tree and slingshot anyone who approaches to interrupt the date. Another quest has you fetching panties from the girls' dorm for the pervert gym teacher. You'll also find yourself doing bike races, chasing criminals, and sabotaging various activities.

Rewards from the quests are either new items, money, or kisses from girls. Kisses restore your health, and if you do enough Art classes they can bump your health past 100%. Money in the game is relatively worthless, you start with $50, and the most expensive item I've found in the game is $40. By Spring, I had $1,000, all from missions and errands.

The gameplay is relatively tight, though there are some control issues. Specifically, because you're given so little time to do anything (each game minute is one second in the real world), you have to constantly sprint or skateboard everywhere. The skateboard is difficult to control, and bumping into a girl gets you a "violence against women" status which will never go away until you're arrested and they take all your items. During the winter it's especially frustrating as the developers decided to make "handling on snow" not work at all.

During fighting is where the game really shines, in my opinion. The move list is nice and large, with more than a dozen individual combat moves you can do, all from simple button combinations. X is "hit" and Y is "grab," so the most complex button move you'll ever do is Y-B-X-X-X(hold). Even so, the fisticuffs are entertaining and challenging. You DO have weapons in the game, ranging from stink bomb and firecrackers all the way to semi-auto missile launchers, but they're difficult to use in combat. Most of the weapons are area effect weapons, meaning if you throw them at the guy in front of you, you'll get hit too. If you try to run away before throwing, the camera doesn't cooperate.

The camera is one of the worst parts of the game. You can't control it no matter how hard you try. Pressing the right stick while moving causes the camera to react in a way that I still can't describe. Your character starts moving in a direction that's sort of the average of his original direction and the camera's direction, and he stops being able to turn with the left stick. If you just stand still and attempt to look around with the camera, you run the risk of the camera bugging out and deciding to whip around your head for a minute.

The camera isn't the WORST part of the game however, those would be the game-crashing bugs. The cutscenes and special missions (like the slingshot mission above) are all done in-game. Unfortunately, that means that the in-game animations and standard in-game NPC AI are always in effect. Imagine you enter a cutscene where you're supposed to talk to someone. The scene starts and they're across the street, so they move toward you. Suddenly they're hit by a guy on a bike who happened to be riding by when you triggered the scene. Your conversation partner runs off, chasing the man on the bike FOREVER. There is no recovering or exiting the cutscene, your character will just wait patiently there until you turn the console off. I've taken to saving before even minor missions to avoid the frustration of having to re-do something. The same thing can happen during missions where you need a specific weapon. If someone hits you at the proper time during one of your animations, you'll lose contact with the "weapon" and not be able to complete the mission. Stupid.

The last complaint is the same one I had about GTA IV. Let's say you're being beaten up by a huge gang of jocks. There's no way you can survive, all you need to do is enter the building across the street. You run across the street, and the screen blissfully shows "(Y) Open." You hit Y. Your character picks up the soda can off the ground. Jocks beat you. The game shows "(Y) Open." You hit Y. Your character drops the soda can. Jocks beat you. The game shows "(Y) Open." You hit Y. Your character picks up the soda can. Jocks beat you to death and you lose all your items. Welcome to a Rockstar game.

Final note: Bully: Scholarship edition is a good game. It has the potential to be a great game, but like many games these days it wasn't play tested appropriately, so there are game-breaking bugs, terrible control issues, and bad interface decisions that prevent it from being a great game. If they would patch the camera, the cutscene bugs, and introduce a selectable action button, it would bump immediately up to AWESOME, or possibly even EPIC WIN. As it is, it gets MEH-WIN depending on how long it's been since the game's bugs ruined my mission.