Preview: Bully: Scholarship Edition

Rockstar shows us its latest Vancouver production, the new-and-improved Bully for Xbox 360 and Wii. Get all the details in our detailed impressions.

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These head-to-heads are all on the Xbox 360 version too of course, but things like this biology class really lend themselves to the Wii edition - on 360 you just use the analogue sticks to make incisions and so on. It's one of the non-gimmicky examples we've seen on Wii where using the Wii remote is a genuine control proposition and not something that may as well have been done using a traditional controller.

Next, we checked out the Xbox 360 version. As you might expect, there's a noticeable improvement over the PS2 and Wii versions, with better shadows and lighting effects and a certain overall shine added. There's more definition to the characters and things are better textured, plus you'll notice lots of subtle visual details that weren't there before. However, it's not running on RAGE though. Although Rockstar Vancouver obviously came up with the game and all its new content, Rockstar told us that a studio called Mad Doc did all the Xbox 360 programming and engine work for Vancouver to apply its content to.

We get the feeling Rockstar tells us this because they want people to know that internally they can come up with better looking stuff on the console; while Bully on Xbox 360 looks good, it's worlds apart from what we've seen first-hand in the 360 versions of Grand Theft Auto IV and Midnight Club Los Angeles, which are among the best content we've seen anywhere this generation.

More Xbox 360 shots here.

We briefly checked out one of the existing missions, entitled Jealous Johnny, at a stage later in the game when Jimmy has respect from quite a few of the other cliques. We have to help Johnny who's concerned that his 'slut' girlfriend Lola is cheating on him. Once he's satisfied that Jimmy himself has clean hands, our boy is tasked with getting some evidence of who's doing the poking. Turns out Johnny was right, as we head off to avoid being spotted on a sneaking mission to get a photo Lola her kissing her bit on the side. "Lola's a bit of a slut, it seems", remarks Jimmy.

As fun as that is, it's something that was in the PS2 version. We threatened Rockstar that if they didn't show us one of the new missions, there would be trouble. It worked; we got to have a look at one of the eight new missions, called Miracle on Bullworth Street. Since the school year obviously spans a whole year, we have different seasons and occasions like good old Christmas. This mission sees us trying to establish a drunk Santa called Rudy as the only Santa in town, in return for a cut of his earnings. To do this, we simply need to go and smash up a rival Satna's grotto and kick the crap out of his elves. Rudy's quite a character as it goes - the opening cut scene starts with him zipping up after taking a piss in the snow, barely able to get a coherent sentence out to Jimmy as his boozy breath steams through the cold air.

We love the way that Bully's classic score then takes on a Christmas vibe as the scene descends into comedy madness, with Jimmy trashing the grotto to the melody of Jingle Bells. If the other seven new missions are this much of a laugh, there should be plenty of new value in the new Bully even for those who already played through the original game.

Another good thing about this new edition (as far as the European release is concerned at least) is that it's now actually called 'Bully'. We know through industry chatterboxes that Sony Europe's thirdparty team had some sort of problem with the original name, resulting in Rockstar changing the release to Canis Canem Edit (Latin for "Dog Eat Dog") in the territory. There's no such nonsense for these new versions, which are both called Bully: Scholarship Edition in all territories.

Get acquainted with Jimmy on 4th March in the US and 7th March in the UK. We'll have a further hands-on preview before our review. Until then: make sure you keep that nose clean, boy, or we'll clean it for you!

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