Some people have fond memories of school - football, cheerleaders, bake sales, chess club, band, whatever your thing back then. But many others still find themselves waking up in the middle of the night remembering tormentors who stalked them at every turn. You know, the people that made you take an alternate route to English class because you spotted them in the hallway or made you rush out of school at the end of the day to avoid being the target of another humiliating moment. Bully captures some of that vibe and provides many of the stereotypical clicks, personality types and hazards you'd find in your average middle or high school..

But contrary to the popular belief by inept politicians and grandstanding ambulance chasers looking for a new industry to make a quick buck on, Rockstar Games' Bully isn't a bully simulator that teaches children the ins and outs of being a bully in your school - hell, the game isn't even slightly controversial if you consider the source.. but then again, Grand Theft Auto never was the murder simulator that these village idiots claimed it was, so take their words with a grain of salt..

No, Bully isn't about bullying at all, but more about being bullied and the best way to handle it. Sure there's some scrapping in there, as you'd expect in any game about high school survival of any merit, but it's pretty mild in the grand scheme of things.. the worst weapon you can use is a baseball bat. The other "weapons" are the trappings of pranksters and school boys such as a sling shot, a stink bomb, sneezing powder and the like.

But Bully really isn't even about the violence, it's about how one boy rises from outcast status to "the cool kid" by doing good deeds, challenging the many clicks that control and divide the student body, getting to class and keeping on schedule and actually passing those classes to move ahead. The strict schedule makes a lot of your activities seem near impossible when you first start the game, but it is in the knowing that makes the game more open ended in the long run. Like knowing what time your classes are, where these class rooms are located and then knowing how much free time you have after class, when curfew is and how to avoid the prefects as they patrol both the inside and outside of Bullworth Academy. It's a balancing act for sure, but it's a fun and exhilarating experience once you get things rolling and you partake of the many missions that await you.

The boy we keep speaking of is Jimmy Hopkins, a good kid who has played his part in a fair share of trouble. Jimmy is the short stalky tank that the occasional fool tangles with and learns a hard and painful lesson from. He's the kind of kid who isn't afraid of anyone expect the adults- and only if he gets caught. Jimmy reminds me a lot of Tobias Wolff in the film This Boy's Life. Much like Wolff, Jimmy is capable of ill will but has a good side that wants to do the right thing.. So here's Jimmy, freshly dumped into the animal factory that is Bullworth Academy, an Ivy League Prep School run by a number of ineffectual and cruel adults that are oftentimes worse than the various clicks that rule the student body. At the end of the day he realizes that he can either fight the system on all sides or find a way to survive.

As Jimmy soon learns, there's plenty of trouble to get into in this new school, and making the right friends is paramount to gaining the kind of notoriety he's after. There's the usual stereotypical characters to deal with at this school and all of them have turf staked out across Bullworth Academy: there's the jocks, who play football and threaten anyone deemed weaker that gets in their way; then there's the greasers, who like to wear leather and hang out at the auto shop; there's the nerds who have taken refuge in the library and are not completely harmless in their activities; the preppies, who rule the school through their privilege; and then there's the prefects, who help the faculty patrol the halls and grounds of the school and break up any kind of shenanigans that get out of hand. As Jimmy's little adventure unfolds, he'll have to take on many of these groups and teach them an old fashioned lesson using some subtle and not so subtle actions - both covert and blatantly violent.

But what really makes Bully shine, in my opinion, are the characters and stories being told here. Jimmy is simply a compelling lead character and someone that many teens and adults can relate to. We've all either been Jimmy or known someone like him. He's the kid who beat someone up for picking on his friend or the guy that played the outlandish prank on the english teacher; he's the kid who got caught smoking or caught wandering the streets of your hometown by the Truancy Officer. Jimmy's the high school hero that many wanted to be, and though he's not a perfect young man he's good enough for us to want to see him succeed to the very end. And the game really is about succeeding by working with what you have, whether it be in the class room, in the halls, finding someone to dote on or in the vast world in and around Bullworth.