A PC Bully; Wii Wheel 2.0; RB1 –> RB2 Transfer Costs; Gears 2 Achievements; GH: World Tour New Peripheral

After making a return to Bullworth Academy on the Xbox 360 and Wii earlier this year with the updated Scholarship Edition, Bully will soon make mischief on another platform. According to signage and postcards at Rockstar Games’ booth at the Leipzig Games Convention, the once-controversial juvenile delinquency will soon be graduating to PC. According to German-language handouts at the Rockstar stand, Bully: Scholarship Edition (known locally as Bully: Die Ehrenrunde) will be “soon available for PC” with “82 missions and 45 school hours, more than 30 hours of fun and countless collector and minigames.” The game tells the story of Jimmy Hopkins, a troubled 15 year old who is dumped at the front gates of New England private school Bullworth Academy by his mother. At the prestigious school, Jimmy will deals with his past while trying to keep out of trouble and beat the school’s bullies at their own game. The game was originally released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006 after legal obstacles laid by permanent disbarment-facing anti-game activist/attorney Jack Thompson were thrown out.

To date, the vast majority of Wii peripherals have been little more than foam shells or lever-driven plastic cases for the console’s motion-sensing remote. The major exceptions to this rule have been the Wii Fit Board, the Wii Classic Controller, and the instruments for Guitar Hero III and Rock Band: Special Edition. The Wii Nunchuck and the forthcoming Wii Motion Plus are also technically add-ons to the remote proper, which comes bundled with still-bestselling “game” Wii Play. Soon, though the Wii peripheral family will have a new member, courtesy of Logitech. Fresh off its deal to make premium Guitar Hero instruments, the peripheral maker has now inked a deal to make the first force-feedback driving wheel for the Wii. Called the Speed Force Wireless racing wheel, the add-on will retail for $99.99 when it goes on sale this November in North America. As the name implies, the Speed Force Wireless is indeed cord-free (other than for electricity), and uses a 2.4 GHz wireless signal to transmit back to the Wii from up to 30 feet away. The wheel bears the Wii remote’s standard control scheme on its front, replete with buttons and a directional pad. Unlike the Xbox 360’s racing wheel, the Speed Force will use two paddles underneath the wheel for acceleration, braking, and shifting. It can be either placed in a player’s lap or used on a table. Though diehard Nintendans will surely use the add-on to take Mario Kart Wii for a spin, Logitech made the Speed Force Wireless with a third-party publisher’s title in mind. The Switzerland-headquartered peripheral-maker is partnering with Electronic Arts to optimize the wheel for the forthcoming racing game Need For Speed Underground, also due in November.

All signs point to another epic rock-off between Activision Blizzard’s and MTV Games’ rhythm games this holiday season, and one of the ways that Rock Band developer Harmonix hopes to rouse crowds in its favor is its vast library of downloadable songs. During this year’s E3 Media & Business Summit, Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos promised that more than 500 songs will be available for play in Rock Band 2, thanks in part to the ability to transfer Rock Band tracks to its successor. However, that much-touted song-transfer ability won’t be free. Speaking with MTV’s Multiplayer gaming blog, Harmonix public-relations coordinator John Drake said that players will be charged a one-time fee that “will not exceed $5.” At cause for the cover charge? According to Drake, Harmonix can’t simply export the tunes from one game to another without ponying up extra licensing fees to the songs’ rights holders. Laying out how the exact process will work, Drake said that a patch will be rolled out for the original Rock Band on the day that its sequel is released. The patch creates an Export menu in the original game, and players who select it will then be prompted to input a password provided with the Rock Band 2 disc. After paying the aforementioned fee, Rock Band songs will then be transferred to the player’s hard drive, where they can then be accessed in Rock Band 2. MTV notes that Drake’s comments regarding the process and accompanying fee thus far hold true only for the Xbox 360 edition of the game, which sees a timed exclusivity when it launches on September 14. In other Harmonix news, the developer announced that pioneering prog-rock act Rush will lend its celebrated 1981 album Moving Pictures to Rock Band. Pricing information was not revealed for the seven-song pack, but the full-album DLC will be available for the Xbox 360 on August 26 and the PlayStation 3 two days later. Of the seven songs in the full-album pack, “Tom Sawyer” appeared in the original Rock Band, though the new release will be a master recording. Tracks appearing in Rush’s Moving Pictures are listed below.

Moving Pictures
“Tom Sawyer”
“Red Barchetta”
“YYZ”
“Limelight”
“The Camera Eye”
“Witch Hunt (Part III of Fear)”
“Vital Signs”

In an interview with Gears of War 2 lead designer Cliff Bleszinski at X08 in Toronto, Canada, Joystiq learned of an upgraded version of the original “Seriously” achievement, first seen in the popular franchise’s previous installment. The achievement, “Seriously 2.0,” requires 100,000 kills across the single and multiplayer campaign of the anticipated title. Who thinks they’ll unlock this achievement first?

G4 claims to have gotten “the hot word” on a new Guitar Hero World Tour peripheral from Neversoft’s Brian Bright who “wouldn’t go into detail about what it will be” though he apparently said the new peripheral was “specifically for the game’s Studio mode.” We’ve reached out to Activision for some kind of comment or confirmation; however, until then, speculation seems to be the name of the game. G4 is guessing keyboard, which is all well and good. And who knows, it may well be a keyboard. We’re not oracles here. But as long as we’re just guessing, why not guess a little bigger, y’know? That’s why we’re happy to announce Joystiq’s official guess for the rumored new Guitar Hero World Tour peripherpal: keytar.

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