A fun, free-roaming game that uses every stereotype in the book.
Ever wondered what a considerably less violent free-roam Rockstar game might be like? Well Bully is that experiment. Place yourself in a school, where you do 2 classes a day, or can ditch, and adventure about the town mowing lawns, racing bikes, visiting the carnival, boxing with Preps; it's all here. While I do make that sound like a wide range of things to do, this game will last about 20-25 hours if you're going for a 100% completion, but then again, none of it is really filler.
The story premise is as such: you're 15, name is Jimmy Hopkins, sent to Bullworth Academy, and you plan to make a name for yourself. Along the way, things happen, people get betrayed, and the stereotypes rise up from their usual. This is along 5 chapters of gameplay. As any "life sim" of which I use loosely, you have 24 hours to do activities. When you wake up you start the day at 8 AM. 9:30-11AM is a class, as well as 1-2:30 PM, and you can either go to these classes or ditch them.
Classes consist of one of 8, depending on the day. You have to pass each class 5 times to fully complete it, which, is a lot more fun with a guide I'd say.
The story missions themselves are pretty fun; you might be using a potato machine gun built by nerds, saving alcoholic teachers, playing pranks on the Jocks, or throwing eggs at Preps. There's a lot of variety to expect from a Rockstar game, without all the guns and such.
There is one co-op mode, but it's pretty much just playing mini-games against a friend and is pretty forgettable. The achievements range from easy (staying out 5 hours after curfew) to difficult (100% completion), but none of them are ridiculous and take lots of time on their own. It's all cumulative. The replay value is pretty low, once you get 100% I doubt you'll be riding around the town egging cars or just assaulting pedestrians, but I guess certain people have different mind-sets.
Notice: All the bugs mentioned by everyone have been fixed by a patch downloadable via Xbox Live when you put the game in.
