Customer Reviews

Bully Signature Series Guide (Signature Series(Bradygames))

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Normally, I have loved BradyGames guides, and have found them to be full of useful strategy, excellent layouts and essential maps to be able to accomplish everything possible in a game. Recently however, their quality has suffered tremendously, and the Bully OSG is one of the shoddiest strategy guides, and in fact books, I've ever come across.

The strategy in most parts of the book is either severely lacking, misleading, or just plain wrong. While the lists of where items are located tend to be accurate, they are about the only consistently accurate aspects of the guide. Times of classes are mixed up, strategies for passing missions and even classes are either nowhere near optimal or are just plain wrong (the main strategy given for passing Shop Class is the exact opposite of what one actually needs to do to pass), and even requirements for how to unlock certain tasks are nowhere near as detailed as they should be. A rather poor job by Tim Bogenn, and one not excused by the changes that likely occurred between the writing of the guide and the final version of the game due to basic strategies being deeply flawed.

But even the bad strategy is nowhere near the worst thing about the guide. This is supposed to be a "Signature Series" guide where production values are through the roof and exclusives are to be found. First off, I'm unaware of any exclusive or special feature that would make this a "Signature Series" worthy guide.

But most importantly, after approximately fifteen minutes of using the guide's maps to find all of the collectible items, the pages started falling out of the guide!!! I currently have a guide that is missing six pages near the beginning due to the pages just coming loose and falling out of the book, and there are about three more that are perilously close to falling out, making me scared to even open the book. In my over ten years of playing video games and buying the strategy guides for them, this has never happened to me, and is absolutely inexcusable.

While the shoddiness of the Bully guide isn't enough to make me not buy BradyGames guides anymore, it is an alarmingly bad production from content to binding, and makes me seriously concerned about the quality control that is currently going on at BradyGames. Other recent guides from BradyGames have been rather lackluster for similar content accuracy and strategy reasons (the Kingdom Hearts 2 OSG leaps to mind), though thankfully none have had the binding issues of the Bully guide.

For now, I would suggest not buying a BradyGames guide without examining its content and apparently its binding quality before purchase. I have never rated a product one star before, but this one deserves that rating.

I was having trouble finding a few things in the game so I got the guide and it helped me find what I was missing, so it worked for me.

If you need a game book that has all the info on Bully, then this is it. Literally.
The binding coming unglued after a little use. One page has fallen out.

This has a lot of useful information in it. But, I didn't get the guide until my second time playing through the game and I beat it with relative ease without it. So, if you want to make sure you collect all the little items for his bedroom (they're like achievements for the non-XBox360 players), then this guide would be the right one for you. But if you want to play through without forking over the extra money, it's entirely doable. There are some playing guides that you have to buy or you'll enter a dungeon and be stuck there forever because you didn't level the right way or wear the right armor or... whatever. But Bully is a really accessible game. It has enough RPG aspects to appeal to the die-hard role-players, but not so much that it'll deter gamers like myself who don't like spending endless amounts of time on inventory screens deciding what to sell, what to buy, etc. So the book, while helpful, is not a must-buy.

Quite an interesting game -- being involved in not only trying to keep yourself out of trouble but to accomplish various missions and defeat certain enemies along the way to the ultimate goal of being able to pass your finals but to also gain respect for yourself and overcome everything in your way.

My son asked for the game and guide for Christmas. He and his cousins played on Christmas day and loved it. It especially helped to have the guide to assist with the classes and the different missions.