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Jimmy don't read good, but he's getting better. Note: Post-patch review

Jimmy Hopkins may not have advanced in school in the year and a half since Bully was released for the Playstation 2, but the new Scholarship Edition of the game for Wii and Xbox 360 has. In case you're not familiar with the original release, your main character is Jimmy Hopkins and your playground is literally a playground. Jimmy attends a boarding school and his hobbies are typical of young people today: stealing lunch money, incapacitating authority figures, treating fellow students like the indentured slaves they are and, of course, getting the girl. Bully promises to bring the same freedom of Grand Theft Auto to the unfriendly confines of high school, with just as much to do and just as few moral limitations.

Bullworth Academy is in some ways a stereotypical school with stereotypical people in it, from the lunch lady to the principal. Jimmy is the new kid, and the missions thrown at him keep his life dynamic. Some will endear him to certain cliques and alienate him from others, and the view of good guys versus bad guys is always changing. There are nerds, jocks, hoods, petty teachers, and everything in between with almost no one falling into a category we'd call, 'normal.' But instead of turning all of these people from our youth into a series of shallow cardboard cutouts, Bully has created real people. This is due in no small part to the fact that the voice acting and script is first rate. Each character offers just enough information to ring true beyond their obvious place in the story. The result is a world that is filled with interesting characters and a game setting which is immensely satisfying.

The missions in Bully include going to class, but you'll also be able to explore the campus and surrounding areas more and more as the game progresses. Going from mission A to mission B is not the name of the game. If you do go to class, the mini games involved can be interesting and some are new to this version of the game. Biology includes dissecting, math includes... math, and so on. Depending on what you remember from school, these can be pretty easy. But they're quick and most are just right for mini games - they're satisfying enough to make you want to finish them. And they offer character improvements (like fighting) that you can use in other parts of the game. There are also 10 new mini games that are designed for two players to compete head to head.

Outside of class, you have free reign. You can be the bully and dole out wedgies and shove kids in lockers. Or you can take out other bullies, which can be much tougher, particularly when you're outnumbered. If you'd rather be a romantic, you can woo girls with flowers and candy. Loner? Go to the arcade, throw stuff at cars or hang out at the fair. Those are all just diversions from the main missions, but when you add it all up there's a lot to do and a pervasive feeling of freedom. If you want to avoid school, you just have to avoid teachers. If boarding school, and life, isn't neatly summed up by opportunity and freedom balanced with consequences, we don't know what is.

And, like school, it's not without it's annoyances. You'll have trouble triggering things in the environment at times, and fighting can be very finicky, which makes some missions and encounters extremely frustrating. Aiming (with, say, a slingshot) and moving around in general simply isn't precise enough. On top of that, the Xbox 360 versions has terrible slowdown issues that make the game move at a snail's pace at times, particularly outside and around town. It also locks up at random, and occasionally Jimmy or another character will get stuck in the middle of what they're doing, giving you no option but to turn it off and start over. After a patch was released on Xbox Live, we've had no experience with the game locking up and the game moves a little more smoothly, but it's still far from perfect. The Wii version does not have these issues, and includes motion controls which come in handy, during some of the mini games in particular.

Bully is a great game that suffers from technical issues. The atmosphere, story and freedom of choice for the player is set on an impressive foundation of character that will either remind you of your misspent youth or childhood traumas long suppressed. It can be funny and disturbing while being challenging and clever. It's just too bad more care wasn't taken in making it available on a new platform.