Bully is the story of a kid named Jimmy whose often married and divorced mother drops him into a boarding school as she goes on an 8 month long honeymoon.
Bully is essentially Grand Theft Auto without guns and cars.
Instead of guns, you get a slingshot, bottle rockets, eggs, etc.
Instead of cars, you get bikes, go carts, and skateboards.
Instead of sex there is kissing.
Instead of gangs, you face off against nerds, jocks, preps, greasers, and townies.
You get the point...
The story is bland, but does drive the game forward well. Jimmy is a troublemaker who acts out because of his family life, but truthfully he's a good kid at heart. At Bullworth (the school) he meets a nemesis who becomes the driving force behind Jimmy's actions throughout the game.
There are a TON of missions and things to do within this game. The storyline itself has quite a few missions. On top of that are:
-Collectibles - Gnomes to destory, cards to collect, rubber bands to collect.
-Races - Bike and go cart races.
-Video games - There are 3 video games in Jimmy's world that are actually fun.
-Classes - There are 9 classes to attend.
-Lockers to break into.
-Safe houses to crash and control.
-Help people - TONS of these missions where folks will run up to you and ask you to do something.
-Lawns to cut
-Paper routes (plays like Paperboy)
-Fight club
and a lot more.
The point is that there is a LOT of gameplay here.
Jimmy's main weapon is his fists, although boss battles require using different objects or skills. The boss battles are really well done here. Considering this is a game that deals with kids and fist fighting, the developers had to come up with something different to make bosses special and they succeeded. An example is one of the greasers who uses a metal pipe. You have to use a few metal plates as shields before getting a pipe of your own.
The gameworld is decently large, but not overwhelmingly so. You'll quickly know your way around town, although a majority of the game seems to focus on the school and preppy section of town.
There is so much more that I could cover here, but I won't. This game plays well, is deep, has tons to do, and is fun.
Find it at a discount and there's no way this would be a bad purcahse or gift.
8 out of 10