New Bully 360 patch creating problems?

By Robert Purchese Published 25 March, 2008

Best avoid, says Internet.

Rockstar has released a patch for the troubled Xbox 360 version of Bully: Scholarship Edition, but electronic word on the Internet street is that it's causing more problems - perhaps even more than it fixes.

The patch went Live on Thursday, but soon after that posters on Major Nelson's blog were accusing it of causing "terrible amounts" of trouble.

Among the problems reported are more game freezes, "choppy" audio and graphical glitches.

Rockstar was publicly "horrified" by wide complaints of game crashing when Bully was released on 360 earlier this month.

Boss Sam Houser suggested older Xbox 360 consoles may be the problem (although we ran into a number of hard lock-ups on our office Xbox 360 Elite) and that none of the issues had shown up in testing, before promising that a fix was being worked on around the clock.

Bully on Xbox 360 still managed to achieve good grades upon release, although those interested might want to hold out until the various bugs are ironed out. You could always pick it up on Wii or PS2 in the mean time.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (27) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DDevil #1 4 years ago

    In my experience I started getting choppy audio when I installed the patch. But the next time I played all the problems had disappeared and it works great now. No frame rate issues, no audio issues... I never had a full crash from the game anyway.

    Enjoying the game a lot too.

  • speedjack #2 4 years ago

    No problems here either.

  • DonnieDarko333 #3 4 years ago

    Should i download the patch then (guys or girls?) or wait?

  • Batfink #4 4 years ago

    Damn. I only just picked this up. I guess regular saves are needed here.

    Great game though :)

  • Dizzy #5 4 years ago

    There were similar problems with another game (can't remember which one - Oblivion?) after a patch. Resetting the HDD cache seemed to solve the problems.

  • ParanoidZombie #6 4 years ago

    No problems so far, and not much problems before the patch either. Internet is an hysterical teenager suffering both from loghorrea and tourette's syndrome.

  • HarryB #7 4 years ago

    I would download the patch
    I did it theh day it came out (hadnt played the game without the patch) and I've not had 1 crash and I've got to chapter 3 and spent many many hours playing. I may just be lucky, I just got a new benq drive in my 360 and a new motherboard.... so who knows?

  • gmmonkey #8 4 years ago

    Patch seems to work for me. I haven't crashed since, but the audio is clipping now and the framerate is still crap.

  • BradMillette #9 4 years ago

    No issues for me, save for a few minor graphical glitches here and there, such as Jimmy's propensity towards spinning around in his seat in Math class.

    Great game, buggy or no.

  • Darren #10 4 years ago

    Well I've said this in the forum but I'll repeat it here anyway... I had no crashes and very few audio glitches pre-patch when I played the game at 1080p using HDMI. Shortly before the patch came out and prior to playing the game again I switched to the optimal resolution, which is 1360x768 on my Sony TV, and when I applied the patch I encountered my first crash within two hours of playing the game and loads of audio dropouts, which were actually really irritating. I decided to remove the patch using the X, X, LB, B, X, X hack and the game still had glitchy audio. Thinking the resolution might have been the issue, I switched it back to 1080p and, lo and behold, I've been able to play the game for nearly eight more hours with no crashes and only the occasional rare audio dropout. Maybe it's just coincidence but it seems odd that problems only manifested themselves at 1360x768... :?

    Has anyone else tried this?

  • lennon #11 4 years ago

    Choppy audio happened before the patch for me and is now marginally better afterwards. Have not experienced any freezing since the patch which I was getting before hand although only in the 3rd chapter which I am now past anyway. Damn snow.

  • WillyWanka #12 4 years ago

    @ ParanoidZombie:

    too true. Think my game has failed to load once in the 10 hrs I've played so far. BURN THEM!!!!1!!!one!!onehundredandeleven

  • GamesConnoisseur #13 4 years ago

    Seem we are getting well into PC domain which X360 was supposed as a console to avoid!!

    Perhaps a sign of the time in which PC and consoles (current gen) become more blurred from when the divide was much greater.

    No problems so far for me though.

  • Mildew #14 4 years ago

    I've had one freeze when I first bought it after about an hour - but since then i've had no problems at all.

  • Byzanite #15 4 years ago

    decided to remove the patch using the X, X, LB, B, X, X hack
    Isnt that how you make stink bombs in chemistry? :p

    Been playing all weekend; no crashes. Few minor glitched but theyre nowhere near playstopping.

  • kangarootoo #16 4 years ago

    Sounds like a cache issue to me, so I would second Dizzy's suggestion.

    [link url=http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/11131/Xbox- 360-Cache-Clear-Code-Revealed/
    ]http://ne ws.teamxbox.com/xbox/11131/Xbox...[/link]

    Note the comment at the end of the article, that if you perform the full cache reset you will lose all game updates (presumably meaning they will need to be re-downloaded next time you play each game).

    Probably just holding A as the game boots will do the trick (if that is what the problem is in this case).

  • linksdad #17 4 years ago

    Patch seemed to have fixed the (3) total machine lockup crashes I experienced prior to applying it. Finished now, so they tinker with new patches to their hearts content.

  • Darren #18 4 years ago

    If this is a cache related issue then why on earth don't all developers add a little bit of code to their games so that upon startup it wipes it clean, like what the RB and LB trick does on BioShock and what holding A down does on Oblivion? I mean it astounds me that no-one has even considered this yet, instead we have to do it manually in order to get games working properly. The Xbox 360 might be made by Microsoft but it's a console not a frigging PC!!!

  • andywilkie35 #19 4 years ago

    i haven't been able to download the patch yet, but i'm on chapter 5 and played for over 20 hours and haven't experienced a single problem yet. hopefully that'll continue!!

  • kangarootoo #20 4 years ago

    @Darren

    Umm. If you clear the cache every time you start the game, its not really going to function as a cache anymore is it? The whole point is that you store commonly used information once, so it is then quicker to access each subsequent time.

    If the caching system on the 360 has problems, it should be fixed. Abandoning its use instead is a bad trend to follow.

    Plus, if a dev did decide to sack it off, simply not using it would be a better plan than clearing it on boot every time.

  • Darren #21 4 years ago

    @Kangarootoo - The cache isn't very big anyway and is presumably meant to be used to cache data for the current game you're playing so why wouldn't it work by clearing it every time you loaded it up? Clearing it manually seems to make these games run better in most cases - it is after all a recommended tip for anyone having problems running 360 games - so clearly having it full or near full isn't a good idea in the first place. Seems to me that the 360's cache acts like the Temp folder on a PC which is also best kept empty too because as that name suggests it is only meant to hold files temporarily not permanently.

  • bdgr #22 4 years ago

    I played bully for a weekend and got fed up with it - they could've at least polished up the graphics on the 360 a damn sight more than they allegedly have - looks exactly like an old ps2 game to me - i could've got it on the wii and wouldn't of minded the graphics on the wii (bizarrely - not sure why!).

    so meh to bully, meh, and pfft!

  • Altrezia #23 4 years ago

    Not noticed any issues on my copy. (Old 360 'core' with premium addons)

  • Monkey_Puncher #24 4 years ago

    Agreed, I have a launch console and I haven't had any game stopping bugs with my copy of Bully pre patch or once I'd patched it. I've had a few walking through walls glitches, but nothing to shout about.

  • kangarootoo #25 4 years ago

    @Darren

    "The cache isn't very big anyway and is presumably meant to be used to cache data for the current game you're playing so why wouldn't it work by clearing it every time you loaded it up?"

    Ah. I thought the cache was stored per game in its own data space on the HDD. If that isn't the case then I stand corrected. If it is, then IN YOUR FACE ;)

    Did I not hear that cache data was stored for the last few games played (I forget how many)? That may just be internet rumour nonsense of course.

    In any event, I still hold by the principal of fixing something if it isn't working, rather than just switching it off.

  • nevernow #26 4 years ago

    My impressions: no more lock-ups, some more sound glitches, decent frame rate. We shouldn't accept poorly executed, alpha-state cross-gen ports at this price, but I can't help stressing that this game is really great.

  • Wayne #27 4 years ago

    2 complete freezes/lock-ups prior to the update.

    No problems since the update. :0)