MTV Multiplayer › Bully

I'm hopelessly addicted to "Bully," but the love fest almost ended when the Xbox 360 version locked up on me this weekend, taking two hours of playtime with it. Poof! Yet I kept playing. I just save more often now.

Even though Rockstar released a patch to address these issues, I've read that others are experiencing the same issues post-patch. This morning, I asked Rockstar if they were looking into it. "No comment," said the publisher.

I'll probably keep playing, though. Are you guys running into this, too? My crash happened during a mini-game. If you have advice on how to avoid a "Bully" crash, let me know in the comments.

Turn on Xbox Live, "Bully" fans. Thirteen days after Rockstar publicly acknowledged freezing and other bug issues with the recent Xbox 360 release of the game, the promised patch is now available.

Rockstar Games told Multiplayer yesterday that an announcement was due this morning, but the publisher would not confirm if that meant the patch itself was actually coming at the same time. Thankfully for "Bully" fans, it did.

We only played around a few minutes post-patch, but if you run into any glitches the update failed to address, let us know in the comments.

I played about an hour of Rockstar Games' "Bully" two weeks ago before reading reports of gamers experiencing a variety of game-crashing glitches. I put my playing on hold.

Rockstar quickly responded to Internet reports and promised a patch was coming "within a week." A week would have been last Friday, the 14th. As of today, there's still no patch.

On Monday, I contacted Rockstar about the whereabouts of the patch. As of this writing, Rockstar still doesn't have one, as the patch is currently sitting in Microsoft's Xbox Live certification queue. Rockstar said they will have a "broad worldwide announcement" tomorrow morning.

Does that mean the patch is actually coming tomorrow morning? Not necessarily.

In the past, I've noticed that companies have a difficult time pinning down a specific date for when anything will pass through certification, so Rockstar's response isn't particularly surprising. They may not know yet themselves.

As soon as there's more to report, we'll pass it on.

I played "Bully" to completion on the PS2 and have told anyone who has asked that the game is well worth checking out. But when co-workers stopped by my office this week to ask to borrow my copy of the newly expanded "Bully: Scholarship Edition" for the Xbox 360, I tried brushing them aside. I wanted to play it and see the added content.

Then I heard the game has been freezing, sputtering and just not running right on some Xbox 360s. Maybe I'd pass.

Rockstar just sent out a statement saying all of "Bully" problems should be fixed shortly. This is from Darlan Monterisi, PR person for the development studio:

"We are very aware of the problems some people have been experiencing with the Xbox 360 version of 'Bully: Scholarship Edition' and have been doing everything within our powers to resolve these issues as quickly as possible. We will be releasing a title update through Xbox Live within the next week that we are confident will rectify the problem. We apologize wholeheartedly for the inconvenience that this matter has caused some owners of the game."

There you go, "Bully" fans. Check back in a week to see if Rockstar pulled it off.