ESRB rating: Teen - Animated Blood, Crude Humor, Language, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence
Awards:
Game of the Year - IGN (2008)
Description:
In Bully: Scholarship Edition, you are playing out the story of James Hopkins a new student at a private school. Throughout the game, James encounters a number of different missions that he must complete, including saving a nerd from being bullied, escorting a nervous kid to the washroom without getting beat up and hitting football players with marbles from a slingshot.
Throughout the game there are mini games in the form of classes that James attends. The better the character does in class, the more he gains in the way of skills, such as the ability to apologize to bullies and talk his way out of fights which he gains from English class.
Trailer:
Why the library should carry it:
Bully can be a catalyst for conversations about relationships, conflict resolution and interpersonal school issues. Even though the character gets into a lot of fights throughout the game, he also defends a number of kids who are the underdogs in the high school story. As Colleen Hannon (aka Mom Gamer) wrote on Gamer Dad’s Gaming With Children blog: “The game has you actually go to classes during play. If you don’t go to class it negatively affects your progress in the game. Your performance in class also affects your progress in the game (getting good grades rewards you with helpful goodies and other useful things).”
Bully can be a catalyst for conversations about relationships, conflict resolution and interpersonal school issues. Even though the character gets into a lot of fights throughout the game, he also defends a number of kids who are the underdogs in the high school story. As Colleen Hannon (aka Mom Gamer) wrote on Gamer Dad’s Gaming With Children blog: “The game has you actually go to classes during play. If you don’t go to class it negatively affects your progress in the game. Your performance in class also affects your progress in the game (getting good grades rewards you with helpful goodies and other useful things).”
The style of game play in Bully and other high paced fighting and first person shooter games such as Call of Duty may also be useful to a child’s mental development. According to a recent study conducted by scientists at the University of Rochester, gamers who play fast paced games that require quick decision making are able to make quicker decisions in life.
“The process is called probabilistic inference, where the brain gathers small pieces of auditory or visual information while the person is observing a specific area. Once enough information is gathered, the brain can make a decision. With action video games, people are putting this process to use continuously and on a regular basis, helping them make faster decisions that are just as accurate as those who take longer to make a decision.”
