Bully: Scholarship Edition - first look

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Get ready to repeat a year of school as Jimmy Hopkins in a revamped, expanded adventure

We also got a peek at one of the four new classroom activities on the Wii version: biology class. Inspired by Trauma Center, biology is a simple dissection minigame in which you'll use a scalpel to connect dots around removable pieces - heart, lungs, etc. - and then remove them with forceps and place them in a waiting tray. Precision's what matters here, not speed, and while we've only seen Jimmy dissect a turtle so far, we're told that the class will start with worms and work up toward progressively more complex creatures. The other new classes will include math (which we're told will resemble Brain Age, with simple, quick equations), a rhythm-action music class and a geography class in which you'll have to match flags to countries on a map.

We've also had a chance to see the 360 version of Bully: SE in action, which almost completely overhauls the graphics. The new Bullworth looks extremely crisp, but while the bump-mapped clothing looks a lot more realistic, don't expect something on par with, say, Assassin's Creed - to keep the game's cartoonish feel, the realism has been reined in a bit. If only it could have been reined in when it came to Jimmy's face; instead of being just kind of ugly and pugnacious, Bully's hero now looks like a middle-aged Neanderthal, all sloping forehead, protruding jaw and receding hairline. Ugh.

Mikel Reparaz
Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.