Bully. It's GTA, but without blood and deadly weapons, and instead of playing as an adult man, you play as Jimmy Hopkins. A 15 year old kid who's aggressive and a fighter, but not truly malicious. He only gives people what they have coming to them.

Bully takes place in Bullworth, a town in New England. Your mom, well, Jimmy's mom, drops you off at Bullworth Academy. A boarding school. The school is full of bullies and corrupt teachers and it's up to you to put a stop to it.

The game's storyline will guide you through six chapters (There are 65 missions, the sixth chapter is an endless free-roam chapter, giving you the chance to complete non-storyline missions and to collect collectables.) Each of them takes place in a different weather season. The missions vary, it's never the same. One time you're cleaning a rat infested library and the next time you're helping a teacher escape from a psychiatric hospital. As Jimmy, your main goal is to bring peace to the school by helping and befriending the five school cliques: The Nerds, the Jocks, the Bullies and the Preppies.

Of course you'll have to go to class. These classes are: English, gym, geography, math (ew), music, shop, art, photography and biology. They are simple mini-games which become noticeably harder every time you attend them and make progress. You'll also have to deal with a time schedule. You can skip class, but you won't get any rewards if you do so and prefects will chase you down and send you back to class if they catch you.

Jimmy, your character, is highly customizable. You can buy clothes, change your hairstyle and more. You can even buy a bike, a go-kart or a scooter if you saved up enough cash. Money can be earned by either taking a paper route, doing missions for townies or students or by completing storyline missions.

You've got weapons. No, they are not guns and no you can't kill people. There's a super slingshot, you can use firecrackers, stink bombs, eggs, a bag of marbles, a bottle rocket launcher and so much more. You can also pick up one of the many objects around you (umbrella's, vases, bottles) and use them as a weapon.

Interacting with your fellow students is fun too. You can talk to them, give cute presents, put them in trash bins or lockers, steal their books, punch them in their faces (aka bully them) or if you feel like it, you can make out with a girl or a guy.

The game has a very impressive map size. You can explore the entire school, the school grounds, the town, a fully functional theme park, an industrial park and a few more awesome places. There are many collectables scattered around the map too.

Bully may be pretty good, but it's not perfect. The graphics are rather outdated, the sound isn't that amazing, the controls are a bit odd at first and there are some bugs. But don't worry! It doesn't kill the fun. Bully is an amazing game and there's much to do. And for only $14.99 - £9.99 - €9.99, it's certainly worth it.

I highly recommend this game.

If someone laughs at you for not wearing pants, you can beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of them.

172/10

It's rare that a developer goes from making an adult game about crime with very adult themes, to making a game about a high school kid who moves to a school for child delinquents and socially challenged kids, but in a lot of ways Bully is like a GTA. For example, Bully is a open world with stuff to collect, bike races to do, arcade games to play and much more to just find and explorer. The mission structure is very similar to GTA, you do a bunch of work for one of the factions, like the Jocks or the Nerds, and the more you do with them, the more reputation you gain, which in turn effects how other people treat you around campus.

The combat is also very similar to GTA, but instead of machine guns and rocket lunches, you are playing with slingshots and stink bombs.

There are also lots of things different about Bully that really makes it feel like you are back in high school. It feels very structured, but that's not a bad thing at all. You have classes two times a day everyday until you pass the highest level of that class. All of the classes have their own perks, for instance, completing one class will show you where all of the collectibles are on the map.

Unlike the protagonists in GTA, Jimmy is 15 and needs his sleep, so if you are out past 2AM, you just pass out on the spot which can make some nigh missions feel a little too time restrictive but adds to the challenge.

I did't have any technical issues with Bully like a lot of people complain about on this port. Overall the game is well made but parts of it seem kind of repetitive, but I still think this is a fantastic game.

Hell of a lot of fun. One of the few sandboxes that I've actually finished.

Bully takes place in the town of Bullworth in New England, possibly in 1970-1980s. That's never been made clear but nevermind. You're a boy that's basically dumped into this boarding school by your mother. You have to gain respect among your new mates while avoiding getting to trouble with the teachers. Basically GTA with criminals replaced by nerds, jocks, greasers and rich inbreds and police replaced by teachers, but there's more.

The town itself is also part of the game world and it offers the player lots of optional missions and some larger story missions also take partly place there. Every day you have lessons according to your curriculum and it's up to you if you are to attend those or just play hooky, go have fun and risk the punishment. The lessons provide you some nice bonuses upon completion (especially chemistry), so it pays to take the classes and if you're quick, you have time to go downtown at the end of the day anyway.

The game is heavily story-driven, but it's a fun experience and you do have all the time in the world to grind yourself silly before advancing the story if that's your idea of fun. Only the end felt a bit rushed and way too much of wish-fulfillment fantasy, but it isn't a deal-breaker. Bully is a very fun romp that feels like a game version Animal House, if Animal House took place in a boarding school instead of university. The game also reminded me somewhat of the old Jennings book series, if that is at all familiar.

Bully is frequently on sale and for a couple of bucks/euros you really can't go wrong if you like sandbox games at all. The game is a console port, but it works fairly well. The controls may seem weird at first if you're using keyboard, but they're easy and responsive once you get used to them.

Let me get the negative out of the way first. The controls are very clunky and counterintuitive at times, which is sorta to be expected from a Rockstar game ported to PC. Expect to tap the Alt key quite a bit to run. The game might get a little buggy at times, like getting stuck getting on bikes or in cutscenes. For some reason there's a 30 FPS cap, but there's a modded version of the .EXE that raises it to a nice smooth 60 FPS. But some missions get bugged in the 60 FPS version, which is annoying. That's the bad stuff.

Now the GOOD stuff: Pretty much everything else. The in-game universe is very lively; no two students or people look exactly alike (even though you may see them repeat inexplicably), and they all have different personalities and voice actors. You get everything you'd expect out of a game that lets you play as a bully at school: wedgies, Chinese burns, stuffing peope in lockers, swirlies, "Kick Me" signs, stink bombs, you name it. There's a decently sized open town to explore outside the school as you progress, and a nice selection of weapons to unlock as you go. Once you get the hang of the controls, the combat is fun and satisfying. But I think the best thing about this game is all the awesome music you'll hear. The game even comes with the soundtrack. A good game overall, priced reasonably well, and definitely worth checking out.