Bully: Scholarship Edition is ready to roll! After being available for the PS2 for two years now, and Bully: Scholarship Edition being released on the Xbox 360 and Wii in March of 2008. All of Rockstar’s games are controversial in nature, but wildly entertaining and almost universally well-received by gamers. Rockstar’s Bully: Scholarship Edition will likely be the same.

Featuring exclusive content that never made it on the PS2 version 2 years ago, the PC release of Bully: Scholarship Edition includes new unlockable items, eight new missions, more characters, and four new school subjects (Music, Biology, Geography, and Math). Another edition to Bully: Scholarship Edition is the single system 2-player minigames that were added, which promises to make this an entertaining game for all types of gamers.

Check out Rockstar’s official Bully: Scholarship Edition site here:

http://www.rockstargames.com/bully/home/

Bully: Scholarship Edition Trailer

Bully: Scholarship Edition Problems on Wii and Xbox 360

Both the Wii and Xbox 360 versions of the game generally received positive reviews with IGN giving the Wii version an 8/10, while the Xbox 360 version received 8.7/10.

The Xbox 360 version of Bully: Scholarship Edition was found to be unstable on some players’ consoles, resulting in glitches, crashes, and performance issues. The problems included audio issues, animation issues, and inability to complete Music classes due to differences between the Wii and Xbox 360 controllers. The most prevalent and common problem with the game is the unexplained freezing of the console, but not music being played on a connected mp3 player or hard drive.

Bully: Scholarship Edition History

Bully is a third person action-adventure video game released by Rockstar Vancouver for the PlayStation 2 on October 17, 2006 in the United States, and October 25, 2006 in the United Kingdom. The game was re-released as Bully: Scholarship Edition on March 4, 2008 for the Wii and Xbox 360 and October 24, 2008 on PC. The Scholarship Edition was later ported to Microsoft Windows and released on October 24, 2008. The PlayStation 2 version of the game is also available in the United States as a special edition that includes a limited edition comic book and a dodgeball of the same style as the ones used in the game, with the word “Bully” embossed on it.

Bully is a sandbox game set in a school environment. The player takes control of teenage rebel, Jimmy Hopkins, who from the opening scene is revealed to be a difficult student with a criminal background. The game concerns the events that follow Jimmy being dropped off at Bullworth Academy, a fictional New England boarding school. The player is free to explore the school campus in the beginning and later on in the game the town, or to complete the main missions. The game makes extensive use of minigames. Some are used to earn money, others to improve Jimmy’s abilities or get new items.

School classes themselves are done in the form of minigames, broken into five levels of increasing difficulty. English, for example, is a word scramble minigame, and as Jimmy completes the level, he learns to apologize to bullies, deliver better taunts, apologize to prefects and finally to apologize to the police.

Jimmy Hopkins has a multitude of weapons available, although they tend to run along the lines of things a school boy might actually attain, such as a slingshot, bags of marbles, itching powder, fire crackers, stink bombs, and later in the game, a bottle rocket launcher and a potato cannon/spud cannon. He also has an assortment of vehicles to operate — mainly a skateboard, but also a scooter, a gokart(for racing), a lawn mower (for money), and bicycles.

Bully has caused controversy among parents and educators. Criticisms are due to the adult nature of previous Rockstar games, in particular, the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Hot Coffee minigame controversy and certain aspects of the game, for example, its title.  Most of these criticisms were voiced before the content of the game was available to the public. In 2006, the United States-based Entertainment Software Rating Board officially gave Bully a rating of “T” (suitable for ages 13 and up), the BBFC gave Canis Canem Edit a 15 rating and the New Zealand OFLC restricted it to persons 13 years of age and over.

Photo from Telegraph.co.uk

Golden orb weavers, known for spinning beautiful and strong golden webs, are well-known to each large insects and the occasional small bird, but pictures that surfaced recently of a golden orb weaver eating a finch in an Australian garden have taken locals by surprise.

The photo shows the golden orb weaver with its long legs wrapped around the finch (a Chestnut-breasted Mannikin). Experts have said that it’s likely that the golden orb weaver is using its venom to break down the bird for easier eating.

It’s speculated that the bird flew into the orb weaver’s strong web and became entangled. Because of the size difference, experts believe that the bird struggled for quite some time, and when it became weak, the golden orb weaver moved on the offensive.

About the Golden Orb Weaver

The golden silk orb-weavers (genus Nephila) are a genus of spiders noted for the impressive webs they weave. Nephila consists of numerous individual species found around the world. They are also commonly called golden orb-weavers, giant wood spiders or banana spiders. In North America, the golden silk orb-weavers (see also Nephila clavipes) are sometimes referred to as writing spiders due to occasional zigzag patterns (stabilimenta) built into their webs, though these occur much more frequently in the webs of Argiope, such as the St Andrew’s Cross spider.

Golden Orb Weaver

The name of the golden silk orb-weavers refers to the color of the spider silk, not the color of the spider itself. Yellow threads of their web shine like gold in sunlight. Xanthurenic acid, two quinones and an unknown fourth compound contribute to the yellow color. Experimental evidence suggests that the silk’s color may serve a dual purpose: sunlit webs ensnare bees that are attracted to the bright yellow strands, whereas in shady spots the yellow blends in with background foliage to act as a camouflage. The spider is able to adjust pigment intensity relative to background light levels and color; the range of spectral reflectance is specifically adapted to insect vision.

Golden Orb Weaver References

Wikipedia

Telegraph.co.uk

Golden Orb Weaver Eats Small Bird

Update: I find it immensely amusing that “golden orb weaver” references and photos are popping up all over the web as another example of a dangerous Australian species, when in fact, these spiders are actually quite common in many areas of the world, including the eastern United States. I’ve actually gone trail riding in early mornings and finished the ride with three or 4 “stowaways.”