"Poorly conceived and poorly implemented. And slightly buggy. But other than that, a great EP"

The Sims go to college. Personally, I never really wanted my Sims to go to college, but no one asked me. Still, I really like the Sims 2, for reasons I don't fully comprehend myself, so I picked it up as soon as it was out (I think 2 days after the official release).

This is something of a long review, broken up into the various aspects of the game.

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The College Experience
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Basically, the college aspect works like this: The first time you run the Sims 2 after installing Uni, when you play a neighborhood for a first time (again, since install) you are asked if you want to add a college to that neighborhood. You can install any or all of 3 premade colleges, plus homemade ones.

Each college is essentially another sub-neighborhood associated with the main neighborhood. If you played the Sims 1, it's just like Magic Town or Vacation Land or Downtown. You can go to a college directly without first loading the entire neighborhood - this is a blessing on slower computers.

Sims in college are a new life stage - "Young Adult". Basically adults that can't get pregnant. You can either play the made by Maxis young adults provided (about 4-5 bunches of them for each college), make your own in create a sim, or send teen aged sims from the neighborhood to college.

Gameplay at college is actually depressingly the same as gameplay in the regular Sims 2. Basically, a sim spends all his or her time at home, except to go to class for 2-3 hours a day. Then they come home and can do an assignment, just like kids do homework in the original game. They also have to do a term paper once per semester, which is just like writing a novel (only shorter).

Each semester lasts 72 hours, sim time. Unfortunately, this clock keeps on ticking when a sim goes to a community lot. Most of the supposed "campus", like the library or gym or even quad, are actually just plain old community lots.

At the end of each 72 hours, a sim takes a final exam. There is a bug in the game where if you have a lot of sims in the neighborhood (like perhaps a 1000+, and perhaps maybe an AMD processor), the Sim cannot actually take the test. They just return home. I had this bug, and it rendered my game unplayable until a modder at MTS2 made a fix for it. As I write this review, about 3 weeks after the game came out, no fix from Maxis is available.

You can make "Greek Houses", basically fraternities or sororities, and there are a few special features for them. Most notably toga parties and pledges. I find it a bit tricky to run more than a few sims at once in college, so I haven't played much with them.

At any rate, the implementation of the college leaves a lot to be desired. There is a lot of time pressure, and most of the furniture on the college lots is poor, so sims spend a lot of time just keeping their needs bars up.

There is some amusing stuff, like the evil mascot and the cheerleader. But there's just so little time to enjoy college. You really almost have to cheat (either using the money codes to buy better furniture or hacks to boost needs and extend time at college) to enjoy it

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The New Objects
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This game introduces a few handfuls of new objects.

Basically, for recreation, there is a pool table and 2 arcade games. One of which is called "Viking Pimp". Which is not nearly as amusing as the name would imply. The pool table is pretty neat. They actually play 8-ball. At first I couldn't tell if games were scripted or actually real games. But eventually I did notice patterns, so apparently they are scripted. Still neat looking.

There's 3-4 new exercise machines. 2-3 are basically the same sort, like the ones you see in infomercials. The other one is a treadmill. That is pretty cool, very amusing to watch sims use because they sometimes run into trouble.

The bubble blower makes a return from the original Sims. It's basically a bong. Even the name of it makes it obvious - the "White Rabbit Bubble Blower", a reference to a hippie song about drugs.

One of my favorite objects from the original Sims was the campfire. There is something kinda like that in this, the Bonfire, except it's much bigger and sims really don't like it. So kind of disappointing.

There's 3 new musical instruments - a drum set, a guitar, and a bass (which doesn't look like any bass I've seen, looks more like a sitar played like a standup bass). This are fairly neat, except chances are good that if a sim has one in their house, a visitor will use them (and put out their tip jar) and keep playing until they pass out.

Sims can now have personal electronic devices - a cell phone, an mp3 player, and a handheld game machine (more like a PSP than a gameboy). The cell phone works just like a regular phone, which unfortunately has the drawback of waking up the sim who owns it when he receives a call. Apparently they don't turn off the ringer before going to sleep.

The mp3 player and handheld also have drawbacks. Basically, anytime a sim gets a free moment, they will pull one of those out and start playing it. This wouldn't be so bad, except it takes a while to cancel. This gets so annoying I simply don't buy them for my sims anymore. There is also a bug with the handheld which causes a sim to get a crush on himself or another player.

Probably the most detailed new objects (in terms of what they do) are the new career rewards. There's the ressurectonomicon, which is basically a phone to the Grim Reaper. You can bring back dead sims. But only if the sim knows that sim, and has some money. Also the Cowplant, which basically is that thing from Little Shop of Horrors, except instead of just singing after eating people, it can be milked for juice that restores days to a sims lifespan.

Next up is the Plastic Surgery Machine, which lets you alter the face of an adult sim. In order to make this useful, ie, give the really ugly townies a makeover, you need to put one on a community lot, and use a mind control mirror to get control of a townie temporarily. It can also only be used for adults out of the box, though there is a hack to let teens use it as well.

For the art career, is the camera. This lets sims take photos and apparently hang them on walls like paintings. There is also a new aspiration award, the printing press, which lets a sim counterfeit money.

I'm probably missing a few minor things. But those are the most notable new items. There really aren't very many new ones.

There's some new furniture, the only real notable piece is a canopy bed that is very good in terms of comfort/rest. And now that I think about it, a vanity mirror that lets a sim give other sims makeovers (ie, change their hair/makeup)

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New Misc Stuff
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There's some new clothes, but they are just for young adults, as far as I can tell.

There are some new hair styles, but these are just for young adults and adults. I think 2 new hair styles for women, both pretty nice. I think 3 for men, mostly long hair, which is nice. I can finally make Space Brother style aliens (ie, the ones with the long blond hair).

Sims now have a lifetime "want". If they achieve this want, they get a permanent platinum status. There are about 20 of them, and are seemingly picked at random. The easiest of these to do are the ones which are just the sim reaching the top of a given career. Most the others seem to involve having grandchildren, getting children in college, or having a golden anniversary (basically be married while turning into an elder).

Sims that go to college and make it to their later years (Junior/Senior) get expanded wants bars. Unfortunately, this also makes the user interface for the sim bigger. About an inch bigger, reducing the play area of the screen. So I found this part to be annoying, really. Maxis needs to take a class in UI design.

The 4 new careers are probably the best thing in the game. You get the Paranormal, Show Business, Art, and Natural Science. Strangely, 3 out of those 4 are not really things you have to go to college to do. AFAIK, there's only 1 college in the US (and I think the world) that offers a degree in Parapsychology - JFK University in California. Most celebs dropped out of high school. Artists do often go to art college, but many don't.

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Final Thoughts:
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I was really underwhelmed by this. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much, since I don't like the concept. But the whole university thing was implemented very badly, too much like the gameplay in the original.

There are also many, many, many minor problems and nitpicks that detract from the overall experience. Many things need fine tuning. It seems unlikely anyone at Maxis played the game for fun. Not unlike the original Sims 2, these annoyances will thankfully be addressed by hackers, but Maxis really needs to do some external testing.

That said, if you are a Sims 2 fan, you really should buy it. It doesn't add much, but some of the things are nice. Probably should wait for it to go on sale, though.

I would give it a D-, or in terms here, 3/10

Also, I think if you are the sort of Sims 2 player that enjoys the "breeding" aspect of the game, that is, you play with aging on and like to have generations and generations of families, then you might like this more than I do. I am more the "Sandbox" sort of player, that is, play with aging off and just play them for fun.

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Notes:
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University is not compatible with all hacks that work in the original game. Custom careers, in particular, cause major problems - if you have one, you have to take it out or lots will not load.

Most hacks, including custom careers, have been updated for use with University, so be sure to check for newer versions. And some hacks that affect things that didn't change in University still work. So check where you got it to see if they still work.

Apparently there is a large number of bad discs. Lots and lots of people have reported the game stops installing at 66% or so. Taking it back for a replacement seems to be the best recourse in this case.

The game runs about the same as the original Sims 2, perhaps a bit slower. Dorms are generally big, but hide sims when they are in their rooms, so this saves some processing power.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/28/05