Something about game:
Bully is a subtle action-adventure open world video game set in a school environment. The player takes control of teenage rebel James "Jimmy" Hopkins, who from the opening cutscene is revealed to be a difficult student with a disruptive background. The game concerns the events that follow Jimmy being dropped off at Bullworth Academy, a New England boarding school. The player is free to explore the school campus in the beginning and, later on in the game, the town, or to complete the main missions. The game makes extensive use of minigames. Some are used to earn money, others to improve Jimmy's abilities or get new items.
School classes themselves are done in the form of minigames, broken into five levels of increasing difficulty. Each completed class brings a benefit to gameplay. English, as an example, is a word scramble minigame, and as Jimmy does well in this minigame, he learns various language-skills, such as the ability to apologize to police for small crimes. Chemistry is a button pushing minigame which rewards Jimmy with the ability to create firecrackers, stink bombs, and other items at his chemistry set in his room at the dorm.
Jimmy has a multitude of weapons available, although they tend to run along the lines of things a school boy might actually attain, such as a slingshot, bags of marbles, itching powder, fire crackers, stink bombs, and, later in the game, a bottle rocket launcher and the spud cannon. He can pick up and use various improvised weapons like bats, sticks, or flowerpots. The weapon Jimmy uses the most are his fists and feet; as the game progresses, Jimmy will be able to learn new moves and combos. Fighting is an integral part of the game; each of the game's five chapters culminates in a battle against the leader or leaders of a given clique. Jimmy, however, has a health bar in which if it gets depleted, he becomes knocked out, causing the mission he is doing to fail and Jimmy to be sent to the nearest medical center. However, violence against girls, smaller kids, or adults and authority generally has swift and severe consequences. Jimmy can get busted by the prefects, teachers, police and even some townspeople after he commits crimes. If this happens, the mission he is doing automatically fails, and most of Jimmy's weapons are confiscated. Depending on where and when Jimmy gets busted, he gets sent to the headmaster's office (and possibly detention), his dorm room, the classroom with a class in session, the Bullworth Academy front gate, or the police station.
Jimmy also has an assortment of vehicles to operate — mainly a skateboard, but also a motor scooter, a go-kart, a lawn mower (for money, and also to complete a detention and, towards the end of the game, some missions), and various bicycles. By passing shop classes, Jimmy can build increasingly high-performance BMX bikes, and use them in either races or a bike park. The player can alter Jimmy's physical appearance to their liking by purchasing new clothes, haircuts, masks, or even tattoos.
Things added in Scholarship Edition:
- 8 new missions
- 4 new characters
- 4 new school classes- Biology, Music, Math and Geography
- New unlockable items and clothing
- Some small script changes have been made
Jimmy Hopkins: A 15 year old boy and the main protagonist of Bully. Jimmy comes from a troubled background, having been expelled from every school he ever attended, for a wide variety of offenses. His mother has just started her sixth marriage, this one with a man old enough to be Jimmy's grandfather. Unwilling to deal with Jimmy, they dump him on the steps of Bullworth Academy before leaving for a year-long honeymoon cruise. Stuck in a school where everyone wants to beat him up, Jimmy has no choice but to fight his way through all the cliques. Jimmy was designed to be an 'everykid'. Lead Producer of Bully, Jeronimo Barerra, claimed that what he wanted to do with Bully was to recreate the state of being a kid, and to make it fun. Parallels were also made between Jimmy and Holden Caulfield, the main character of Catcher in the Rye. Jimmy and Holden share a background of a difficult homelife and being thrown out of multiple private schools. Jimmy even uses Holden's favorite derogatory term, "phony", to describe his new stepfather.
Gary Smith: The main antagonist of the game, Gary is described by other characters as a sociopath. He admits that he suffers from attention-deficit disorder. He considers himself smarter and better than everyone, and wants to run the school. Initially Jimmy's friend, he turns on him early in the school year and spends the rest of the game behind the scenes, manipulating the cliques into fighting Jimmy for him.
Pete Kowalski: Pete, usually called "Petey", is a shy, smaller than average student who has trouble fitting in with any group and making friends. Pete is the second student to introduce himself to Jimmy, and becomes the closest thing to a friend Jimmy has at Bullworth. The two of them and Gary form a friendship of sorts, although Gary picks on Pete constantly. When Gary turns on Jimmy, Pete stays loyal to Jimmy and continues to for the rest of the school year. Although he doesn't have physical capabilities matching Jimmy's, he has a good tactical mind, and his advice helps Jimmy throughout the course of the game.
Dr. Crabblesnitch: The pompous principal of Bullworth Academy and all-around killjoy, Crabblesnitch believes that "rehabilitating" problem children is his calling in life. Crabblesnitch was originally introduced as the main nemesis, a corrupt, authoritarian bully. The character was changed by the time the game was released, leaving Crabblesnitch more self-righteous and oblivious than malignant. Crabblesnitch refers to the bullying taking place as "school spirit". He refuses to hear ill of his staff, even expelling Zoe for complaining about the gym teacher Mr. Burton hitting on her. He does, however, take appropriate action when confronted with undeniable truth, and fires two different teachers for misdeeds and corruption over the course of the game.
Russell Northrop: The leader of the Bullies clique. Russell isn't the smartest student at Bullworth Academy by a long shot. However, he is huge, very tough, and so strong that even the school's brutal and corrupt prefects are afraid of him. Early in the game, Gary manipulates him into fighting Jimmy. After Jimmy beats him, he becomes Jimmy's staunchest ally, assisting him with several important missions.
Zoe Taylor: A townie girl who was expelled from Bullworth Academy by Dr. Crabblesnitch for complaining that the gym teacher was hitting on her. In addition to serving as a primary love interest for Jimmy in the game, she helps him carry out an important mission near the end. After Jimmy defeats Gary, she is re-enrolled at the Academy.
| Reception | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | 87.32% |
| Metacritic | 87/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| 1UP.com | A+ |
| GamesMaster | 90% |
| GameSpot | 8.7/10 |
| IGN | 8.9/10 |
| PrideGameingNetwork | 9.0/10 |
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