They grow up so fast, don’t they?  First you’re clapping and cooing over their cribs when they’re infants and then they’re tying their shoes on their own.  Next thing you know they become teenagers ready to go off to college and thanks to The Sims 2 University we’ll see them do just that.  The world of The Sims have seen expansion packs before but this is the first time we’ll be able to take part in shaping our teenaged Sims into adult Sims parents can be proud of when they finally come home.  How good is this expansion pack to the brilliant sequel that is The Sims 2, you might ask?  Let’s just say that campus life is a challenging good time.

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past five years The Sims is a strategy game that allows you to create a family that interacts with everything you put in front of them.  They live and breathe and have desires and needs that require you to fulfill them or they live unhappily or even die.  In The Sims 2 we come to see the family unit expand by watching couples give birth to children who grow up to become adults themselves but with The Sims 2 University we get to play a role in making them successful adults with skills they learn outside of home.  You can take your created Sims from the main game or create your own to send off to college.  With a choice of attending three different campuses--Sim State University, Académie Le Tour and La Fiesta Tech--your journey to make something of your young Sims becomes the main priority.

First off the campuses are different from one another so choosing the right one is a question of how driven you are to push an outstanding career for your created Sims.  Sim State University, for example, is dedicated to high standards of learning and thus the right choice for those that desire their Sims to become the next Stephen Hawkings or the next Al Gore.  Académie Le Tour is a more traditional college with world-renowned professors.  It’s the school you turn to if your ambitions lie in the artistic categories such as the culinary or paranormal field.  Finally comes La Fiesta Tech, what you might call a party college (think UC San Diego or any college in Hawaii) with more slackers and students longing to be the next Picasso or the next Paris Hilton minus the wealth (which means you’ll try your hand in anything in the show business field).

Whatever campus you choose you’ll find similar goals that have you keeping an eye on your basic needs but also your scholastic requirements.  That means if you have an hour to get to your next class you better hustle and if you have an exam to study for tomorrow you better cram in the library.  Yes, this game simulates the learning process rather accurately so you’ll be more than occupied dealing with studies and making an impression on your professors who you can turn to after class.  Miss a class and watch your grades slip and this make the semesters drag on forever.

You start by selecting a dorm and then immediately your own room.  The dorm you decide to claim as your new home will fill up with NPC Sims that you can meet and interact with on a daily basis.  Friendships will form, romances will bud and it doesn’t get any better than this.  Unlike the core game where you can ignore your neighbors, The Sims 2 University will force you to interact and talk to others since you’ll find yourself eating your meals with other students living in the dorm or use the communal shower.  This, of course, leads to friendships and love interests but best of all it leads to options like forming your own rock, country or jazz band with fellow roommates.  You can buy a guitar, piano, bass or a drum kit and play and practice with your friends until you’re good enough to play some venues around campus.  It’s a great way to earn creativity points and Simoleons (Sim-speak for currency).

You can also join a fraternity or a sorority if you choose to go Greek.  This allows a more social Sim to interact more with fellow students and join some truly, well, tame parties.  How tame, you might ask?  Well, lets just say the kegs in these parties aren’t filled with beer and the streaking that goes on in the halls of your dorm really feel, well, unexciting.  Add some water balloons, a lengthy pillow fight and joy buzzers and you’ll feel as though you’ve just enrolled in Disney University.  The parties and pranks don’t have to be R-rated but as a game attempting to simulate the college life it has to at least portray it more accurately than this.

At least the game got the student life right.  You’ll not only be attempting to earn a scholarship or study hard enough not to repeat the semester but you’ll also have to get a temporary job because--let’s face it--college isn’t cheap.  You can pull a few shifts at the local coffee house or espresso bar and you can play in a band for well-earned tips.  Yet it’s all about earning that degree in any of the eleven majors you happen to pick (everything from psychology, art, literature or physics are available to you).  Earn a degree in your chosen career and you’ll even be rewarded with four cool new items such as the Resurrect-O-Nomitron that can bring dead Sims back to life or the Laganaphyllis Simnovorii (a dangerous Sim-eating plant).

Visually, nothing has changed so The Sims 2 University looks exactly like the main game.  The characters are still neatly rendered and they still go about their business all around you.  You’ll still encounter a few bugs here and there that leads to Sims getting stuck in corners or a few instances when they twitch like crazy when two or more characters block their path.  The buildings in this game, somehow, look a bit better than The Sims 2.

As for the sound, the game’s music just keeps getting better and I’m beginning to like the 60s-inspired rock tunes and the tunes with lyrics (or course, by lyrics I mean it’s all done in Sim-speak).  There’s a better assortment of tunes and that’s a good thing since every dorm, frat house or sorority has a radio on.  It’s not bad stuff at all.

The game might not portray the college life accurately but The Sims 2 University won’t fail to make higher learning so much darn fun.  Yes there are some rough spots that make the student life seem like work and yes its not easy surviving each semester but overall this is a refreshing way to build up your teen Sims into the resourceful adult Sims that will make up your neighborhood in the core game.  Consider this expansion pack a Must Have. 

Gameplay: 8.8
It’s The Sims 2 in a campus setting filled with specific areas of interest, loads of NPC characters and things to do like go study in the library, join a sorority or even form your own rock band. 

Graphics: 8.2
The few bugs and graphical glitches don’t really take away from the game’s overall great visual appeal.  The characters still look great and watching them interact with the world around them is still gaming gold.  You can be as creative as you want and design your pad (no design tools available for dorms) anyway you like and it will still look good.

Sound: 8.5
The new tunes sound appropriate to the college scene and listening to a newly formed band goes from awful to amazing are actually brilliant.  You can still expect all the characters to speak in the usual Sim Speak but that’s okay.

Difficulty: Medium
The daily rushing from class to class and then head for work half zonked will feel strangely familiar.  If that weren’t enough your Sims still have to study and worry about grades slipping.  It’s hard but then again college never was easy in real life.

Concept: 9.0
The new add-ons to the game go beyond the usual new item, jobs and wardrobe choices (although the man-eating plant is great for removing rivals and Sims you dislike) and that’s a really good thing.  Minus points for the tame parties.  I mean kegs filled with fruit juice?

Overall: 8.6
As far as expansion packs go; The Sims 2 University is a great addition to the main game and one that just adds more goodies to explore.  While the Sim campus life is pretty tame in this game you’ll still find enough to see and do in this game.  If you love The Sims 2 then you’ll really like The Sims 2 University.