Bully: Scholarship Edition - first look
Get ready to repeat a year of school as Jimmy Hopkins in a revamped, expanded adventure
Stylistic nitpicks aside, the 360 version also gave us a look at one of the eight new missions, at least some of which will involve Jimmy being caught up in a war between Santas around Christmas. In the one we saw, "Rudy the Red-Nosed Santa," Jimmy needs to help Rudy - a skinny, drunken, creepy weirdo with a thick five o'clock shadow underneath his fake beard - dress up his disgusting back-alley "workshop" with shiny bits of trash. Gathering it means heading out into the snowy town streets and looking for glinting objects, all while trying to fight off short, belligerent elves employed by a rival Santa.
Miraculously, this actually works, and the second part of the mission tasks Jimmy with photographing a series of squirming brats as they sit on Santa's lap. The key to success is waiting until they look at the camera and smile, which they'll only do for a fraction of a second. Endure their shenanigans four or five times, however, and it's a quick payday for Jimmy and a trip to the racetrack for Rudy.
We haven't seen the remaining seven missions (all of which were created by the game's original design team), but even in the unlikely event they turn out to be horrible crap, Bully: Scholarship Edition should be at least as fun as its PS2 predecessor. The core game seems relatively untouched - even the infamous boy-kissing is intact - so unless something major happens to screw things up, we expect it to be awesome. We'll be able to say for sure as we get closer to the game's release in March.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Stellar Blade director "grew up too poor to afford" a PS1, but when he finally got one in college, Ridge Racer and Final Fantasy inspired him to make games
Oh, that's why the Stellar Blade devs were terrified by demo players: one fan's spent "about 60 hours" maxing Eve's skill tree before the action RPG is even out