"One of the better Sims expansions."

So, we've been though Living Large, where we got new items and options...the awful House Party where new NPCs ruined our social lives...Hot Date where we got a chance to see a larger Sim world with the addition of Downtown and a larger neighborhood...Vacation where we got to take our Sims family and friends and party in a resort somewhere...Unleashed gave us the new headache of pets... and finally...Superstar...where we ditch the job circuit in an attempt to join to colorful world of celebrity.

As far as story goes, you know how it is. There is none. When you decide you want to begin to journey to the top of the Celebrity world, you will be forced to quit your job. After that, you're free to start from the bottom and work your way up a social chain, in anywhere of three specific performance areas; music, modelling, and acting.

While working your way up, you will encounter happenings in each of the three...IE, to progress in acting, you need to hit the recording studio as well as do a photo shoot. There are several minigames involved, such as pleasing the director, which has undoubtedly frustrated several gamers. The most frustrating part, for me, is making friends. Once again, you need to have a certian amount of friends to progress up the job ladder...this time around, you need to be friend Sims Stars, with uppity personalities - most of them won't even talk to you if you're not anywhere near them on the celebrity chart...so, hit the tabloid, and start from the bottom of the Who's Hot list, and work your way up as your Star Level goes up...

Anyway, onto the technicalities.

Graphics are the same as in every Sims Game so far, but here we see some real new animations. New social interactions also provide some certain aspects of humor, such as when your Sim is complimenting a celebrity and gets rejected, he will proceed to jump up and down.

Sound: There is a number of new Simmish dialouge, and when you purchase a Sattelite dish for your home, you can recieve four new channels on your TV. There are also a few new radio stations as well. The loading music at the beginning is Sims Trance-y stuff. Yay.

The gameplay is all the same, really...There is a huge overhaul of items in this one that increase fun and all that stuff, so that adds a great element...but sometimes it's frustrating dealing with stuck up celebrities...Also, if you don't visit Studio Town once a day, your Star Level will go down.

You will hear a lot of complaints about bugs. This game seems to be rather large, and for me, running on a near brand new machine, it installed slowly and loads slowly as well. There are a lot of complaints about dumping the user back onto their desktop, but I haven't experienced that yet (and hopefully I won't, ever). There are also several small in game bugs that will probably be worked out in a patch...these must have been left in for the sake of other repairs and getting the game out on time. They include not seeing certain icons inside text bubbles...and actually, that may be it.

As mentioned above, a whole slew of new items have been introduced, and I will mention a few before I end the review:

Mudbath, Scuba Tank, Sky Diving Simulator, Oxygen Bar, Wall-mounthed Flatscreen TV, Shakespearean Bookshelf, Chrome Dresser, Steam Bath, new Hot Tub, new Toilet, and of course, a whole lot of new walls, carpetting, decoration items, and furniture.

All in all, this is a great expansion to get, and probably the best since Hot Date. Lots of fun and endless gameplay really make this game shine.

Now if only there would be an interaction with celebrities so I can kill the unneccesarily placed Christina Aguileara and Avril Lavigne...but Andy Warhol and Marylin Monroe make up for it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/21/03, Updated 05/21/03