underdawg's Full Review: The Sims™ 2: University for Windows
The Sims series of games continue to alternately entertain me and frustrate me. Somehow making little digital people to do mundane tasks around the house was fun. But in the Sims games, your characters don't do anything you can't do yourself in your real life. It's easy to justify to myself for playing most video games because hell, how often do I get to fight Sith Lords in real life? What are the odds that I would wake up tomorrow a 6'4'' quarterback, lead the league in passing and rushing yards, and lead the Dallas Cowboys to the Super Bowl? See, it's easy to put off homework and papers do play those kinds of games cause hey, papers come and go. Playing in the Super Bowl, albeit digital, is once in a lifetime.
It's another thing to put off a paper to write a paper in the Sims 2: University Expansion Pack. After a torturous installation, I created a Brian Casablancas, and planned to enroll as an art major.
In a typical day, I would go to class, practice guitar a bit, do some reading and work, and that was pretty much it. Your character has to write a paper a semester and do a certain amount of studying but the semester is incredibly short that the entire thing is a race against the clock. Plus, it turns out that dorming isn't a great way to meet people. It seems that your floormates spend most of their time in their rooms with the doors locked. There's no way to knock or anything; it's crazy. Sometimes I'd invite someone over from class and they'd just wander into someone else's room and lock the doors. God knows what they were doing in there!
There are plenty of other unrealistic things there. Like the game never recreates the horrible bus schedules of state schools. No parking tickets. There's also a dining hall in the dorm. Now this I can accept because if the game included all those details, it wouldn't be any fun to play. But some stuff is just plain weird. Like if someone makes a mess in the bathroom, no one cleans it up. The game somehow thinks that the toilet is your possession and therefore your responsibility to clean.
Apparently there are more secret things in this game. Like you can join a counterfeiting ring. Supposedly you can create a band but I never really left my dorm to go to a community lot because it literally takes at least 5 minutes to load. Actually, that's only a hypothetical statement because my laptop froze in the middle of it. In fact, this game was just extremely buggy.
The game looks beautiful. People don't look photorealistic or anything but you can zoom in to your heart's content and people's features still look nice. This is a college game so music is more alt-rock sounding...with gibberish lyrics. It's great.
I have to be thankful at least that the Sims Expansion packs always try to add stuff to gameplay. If you are a huge Sims fan, you want this. Send your teenagers to college and they'll actually learn skills so they won't have to start off at an entry-level job! Also, since the entire life of a Sim is a race against the icy cold clock of Death, at least you get some extra time with them. New items are there, new hairstyles are there, and new interactions are there. Now there's an Influence meter...gain enough Influence points, and you can force a chump to write your paper for you.
Being someone who's been burned out by Sims 2, not to mention a college student, this game felt too eerily familiar to me to be fun. It almost felt like a lecture on the importance of doing work. I dropped out. Of Sims University, I mean.
xo,
underdawg
(This was my attempt at Lean n Mean in my most verbose section...Games. Feedback welcome.)
This game doesn't improve on the graphics of The Sims 2, so go there if you want more info on graphics.
ESRB Rating: T - TeenGenre: SimulationOperating System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or laterSystem Requirements: Requires the full version of The Sim...More at Newegg.com
Your Sims are now young adults leaving home to live the ultimate college fantasy. Immerse them in college life as they become the Big Sim on Campus. P...More at MacMall
Your Sims are now young adults leaving home to live the ultimate college fantasy. Immerse them in college life as they become the Big Sim on campus. T...More at QVC
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.