Amazon.com: The Sims 2 University Expansion Pack: PC: Video Games

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334 of 352 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hail Alma Mater, March 3, 2005

By	Hagrideus "Sci-Fi/Fantasy Aficionado" (San Lorenzo, CA) - See all my reviews

I bought this game last night and played it for two hours. I must say it's quite good. The gameplay is fairly easy; it's really less complicated than I imagined it would be.

What's New

* New "Young Adult" Stage - Once your Sims have gone through adolescence, they're ready to enter this stage in their lives and go to college. You do so by moving them first into the "Family Bin" and then move them to a dormitory (as you would normally move a family into a house). You can also choose from the Young Adult Sims already available in the Family Bin, or you can custom-create your own collegiate Sims (create up to eight per household).

* New Buy and Build Objects - Although I haven't completely explored the expansion pack, there are some new objects that add more fun to the game, like additional exercise machines, decorations, arcade games, communal showers, bonfires, etc.

* Influence - When you interact with other Sims or fulfill certain Wants, you gain Influence points. This feature allows you to "influence" other Sims into doing favors for you, like writing your term paper.

* Three University Lots - Sims State University, Academie Le Tour, La Fiesta College.

* Majors - Choose from a variety of courses which will help shape your Sim's future career path.

How the Game Works:

As I mentioned earlier, the gameplay is fairly simple. You can choose to play your former teen-aged Sims, pick the ready-made ones from the Family Bin, or custom-create new Young Adults.

Young Adults have four stages representing each year: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior. Each stage or "school year" has two semesters, which has an X number of hours to complete. At the end of each semester, there is a final exam that your Sim has to take.

Complete all the academic work required (by going to class, doing term papers, studying, etc.), and your Sim will do well in school. The "Academic Panel," which normally shows career/skill path, displays your Sim's GPA, major, and minimum grade level to be attained. If your Sim fails, he/she goes into "Academic Probation" and has to repeat the previous term. If he/she fails a second time, he/she gets kicked out of school and into the "real world" where they transform into normal adults.

As a Freshman, your Sims start out living in a dorm. But as they gain more simoleons, they may choose to live in a private residence. As they meet more people, they can join a frat or sorority house by making a telephone call.

After your Sims have successfully completed all four years, they graduate and move on.

When my Sim goes to class, it's not shown what's going on in class. It's similar to when an Adult Sim goes to work. You only see/play your Sim when he/she is actually home. Partying and interacting with other Sims is the whole point of the game.

:)

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44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sims on Campus, March 7, 2006

By	Amy Feinberg (Georgia, USA) - See all my reviews

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

Basically, this first addition to the sims2 creates another neighborhood. This one is a college campus. But colleges arent the only new thing in this game.

However, since the most advertised part of this game is teh biggest, lets start with that.

So, why send your sims to university?

Teens are giving the option to, at any time during their teen days, go to a university, previously added onto the neighborhood by you. if it doesnt have a college, the teens cant attend one. a teen sent to college recieves a memory and enters the "hidden" life stage, gaining them an extra 27 days of life without achedemic probabtion. Of course, your sims could just go straight to adulthood after their teen years, but where is the sim torture in that? ok, its everywhere, but thats besides the point. Sure, higher education doesn't necessarily
mean better jobs in real life as much as having a social network of friends wide enough to cover New York City, but in The Sims 2, going to university and graduating clearly has advantages, and huge ones at that:

1. Four new careers are unlocked to graduates! These super careers take
higher skills and more friends, but offer a lot more money, less work days,
and better hours! Along with these new careers are four new fun career
rewards. Here are the details:

-Show Business:
Career Reward: Dr. Vu's Automated Cosmetic (Level 6: Supporting Player)

-Natural Scientist:
Career Reward: Laganaphyllis Simnovorii (Level 6: Rogue Botanist)

-Paranormal:
Career Reward: Resurrect-O-Nomitron (Level 5: Medium)

-Artist:
Career Reward: Luminous Pro Antique Camera (Level 5: Wedding Photographer)

2. sims get aspiration bonuses at the end of each year in university. they also get money if they pass at the end of each semester.
Freshman: +1 want slot
Sophmore: aspiration change
Junior: +1 lock slot
Senior: +1 want slot

therefore, at the end of graduation, your sim will have had the option to change aspirations and have 6 wants and 2 locks, assuming they get that far.

so why wouldnt they get that far? In the senario that you hate your sims and are the kinda person who kills them off, unlucky sims who have been expelled from college(getting on achademic probabtion and then failing again) gain an extra fear slot for you to use in the name of fun, and your sim gets a little red X over the young adult life stage as a reminder. in the case that you just really made a mistake and want your sim to not get an extra fear slot, just call up the college and drop out, and your sim just gets a little white X over the young adult life stage marker, as a reminder that they were too cool for school... or just too stupid.

Other advantages to going to university include extending your sim's life
naturally by almost thirty days without academic probation, the time to make
new friends, and increase base skills so you can start off higher on the
career ladder after you exit university. Sims who have traveled the full way
to graduation also retain several young adult exclusive social interactions
like the school cheer and those who graduate with honors get a good automatic
career boost that allows them to leap positions.

Along with this great new lifestage are other new things that revolve around it

1. There are many advantages in starting a sim out as a teen or younger, such as the extra time to gain skills and make friends, a good number is 11 so that they only need to make one to get the big sim on campus memory. Scholarships can help a lot in university, where a young adult sim will start out with only $500. Also, young adults already have the first kiss memory, so if you are looking to start a story about an innocent sim who goes completely insane and has her first kiss with a no good weirdo, well, its past that point. The
convenience of creating a young adult instead of a teen however is that you don't have to create their parental units in order for them to exist, so you can make them much easier without having to fill in extra space.

2. Scholarships: basically, your sim can earn money for being parentless(yep, killing the parents finally pays off), having 8+ skills in any area, have high pool(new object) or dance skills, being a zombie(more info later), being abducted by aliens, or being level 3 in a teen career. keeps you from going broke, and then hey, since we are wasting all of our time gaining scholarships, our story about innocent sim turned freak can have her woohoo with someone before they have their very first kiss. which is actually a bit hard, but do-able. oh yea, and an A- or better sim gets a scholarship. you need to use a phone or pc to apply for scholarships, or having the skills doesnt help.

3. There are two ways to send your sims to university, through the
phone/computer, or the "Move Sims To University" button on the neighborhood
menu. They both have their advantages and disadvantages.

4. Housing
Dorms: Basically, your sim runs to claim a door, and gets a puny room with just enough space for a single bed, desk, and a wardrobe.

Normal house: Nothing new really about them, except teh cost something like a third of the normal price because your are "renting" it. once inside, everything costs the same.

Greek houses: your uni sims can start a greek house and live in it.

There are a lot more things that can be said about colleges, but I need to be somewhere soon, so moving on.

The top of the new careers:
Once you get to the top of these careers, your sims have less work days/hours, and more money.

The new career rewards:
Du Vu's Thingy: ignoring the fact that every sim already has tons of botox in them, you can give your sim a complete makeover once acheiving level 6, show biz. basically, you can change everything about a simn except eyes and skin if this is used with a mirror.

Cow Plant: The long names plant that looks like a cow, that creates light green spectors of your annoying visitors. just stick it on your sims front porch, and your loner sim will never be bothered again! After 12 hours this level 6 Nat. Sci. reward, it sticks a peice of cake on its tounge every twelve hours to attract sims to their doom. and dont worry, it always wins.

Resurect-o-nomitron: a sims ticket to their second life. If you dont pay enough, you may get a zombie, which isnt any big deal, except that you have to kill them off for them to die, and they have a rather crappy personality. fortunatly or unfortunatly, depending on whether or not you are satan, maxis made it impossible to create a child zombie. too bad. tear tear.

Luminous Pro Antique Camera: Take pictures of a blank wall, and sell them for $100 bucks! Yea!!!

New Objects:
There are many new objects in the game, includingg additional excersise machines, guitars, drums, bonfires, punch bowl, ect.

Influence: If you have ever thought that NPC and townie sims are overly disposable good for nothing space wasters, then influence wont change anything there, but if you happen to enjoy watching them suffer, forcing them to do all your work, and making them do things against their will, as opposed to using your influence to right all the worlds wrong, then yea, influence is pretty fun >:) Influence points can be gained by fulfilling wants with a blue rim around them. You need more friends, not part of the family, to be able to hold more influence points, the max being 12 friends for 10,000 points. Of special note, if you feel like breaking a trash compatctor or dishwasher, a sim with low mechanical skill is likely to light up like a christmas tree, sorta the sim version of what could possibly happen if you use out of game programs and your game blows up into a firey blue ball visible from space, but thats besides the point.

Lifetimewants: your sims can now have a life time want, which is a want that lasts for life until it is fulfilled, giving your sims permaplatinum levels. therefore, you platinum legacy graves are not worth as much. sims get something like 25k aspiration points and 10k influence points. you can see this by hovering over the aspiration meter. of special note, the family aspiration LTW are hell, so if you get lucky and get the golden aniversery want or become captain hero want, dont change aspirations. also, uni careers are supposedly a LTW, but I have never seen them. what does this tell us about listening to gossip children? moving on.

ok... you can also move sims into an existing household. therefore, you can merge your super rich family with your super poor family for a super rich family. or put all career rewards on one lot and make a training station. how cool is that?

Now, for the big fun part, glitches. I ahve never really experienced glitches, and I play with like a thousand hacks. and the patch, but those a compatible with everything. read what you are installing and compatibility before you install, and your game is 95% less likely to blow up into a big fiery blue ball visible from space. of note however, is that upon 2 children of one family graduate, one had lost the went to college memory, and the other had a memory of graduating summa cum laude(which happened) and cum laude, which didnt. yea, the only thing that even comes close to the horror of the jump bug(like when your sim family with 10 kids forgets they had teh kids and are married) is the cow plant, but we all laugh at the dying sims anyway. So thats about it, overall, this is a great game totally worth getting, even though sometimes college seems to take a while.

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56 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars University Expansion - Fun & Bugs, September 28, 2005

By	Mommitude (Butler, PA) - See all my reviews

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

ABOUT THE GAME: Sims can finally have more time to work on the skills they need for their jobs as well as get some aspiration rewards by going to college. The goal of the game is to have your sim "graduate" with good grades but there are alternatives. You can study hard and earn scholarships or you can streak and skip class but beware that if grades suffer too much then your sim risks getting booted from the university. Your college sim will need lots more fun than the typical adult sim, so watch that meter!

LIFELINE: Your college sim will have an additional icon on their time line of life for attending college. They can have a longer life if you manage to meet the majority of their aspirations while they attend college, which also gives you aspiration bonuses to use now or later.

MAJORS: You have the choice of several "majors" for your sim to pick from. You should have your sim go to a computer and declare a major once they get moved in. Some majors lead to new career paths. Your sim can change majors at any time until they are in their senior year.

NEW INTERACTIONS: Your sim can prank, pillow-fight, play kicky bag, entertain with a school cheer, talk about their major, and more... and whats interesting is they have these interaction choices after they move into the regular community. There are certain things your college sim cannot do because they are not a "full adult" yet. For example, they do not have the option to get married, adopt, try for baby, and a few more.

INFLUENCE: You can earn "influence" points much like aspiration rewards and use them to have other people do your assignments, type your term paper, etc. They do not have to be your friend or even know you for you to influence them. You can influence anyone, including the cafeteria worker if you live in a dorm. Be warned if you influence a sim who is in desperation of having a need met, you will use the points to influence them but the other sim may not actually complete the task - this is not a bug, it is part of the challenge of the game. The amount of influence points you can earn is affected by how many people / friends your sim has. The more friends you make, the more influence you are able to store up to use.

KEY TO GETTING GOOD GRADES: The ability your sim has to learn is affected by his/her skills. Very much like a job requires your sim to have certain skills such as cooking/cleaning, your sim's major will require them to have certain skills and your sim can only "learn" up to a point until they obtain the needed skills. Once they achieve the required skills, they can learn more. If you manage to get the "learning" meter full; then you do not need to do any more assignments, research, or term papers until after the final exam for that semester because it will not carry-over into the next.

STUDYING: Going to class WILL earn your sim some learning and will fill part of their social needs. Assignments are the fastest way for sims to earn learning and does not take down their needs much. Research and term papers are the best way to earn lots of "learning" towards school but both takes your fun meter down fast. Research is great because you can ask to join you and the more you have with you the faster your learning meter will get filled - it also will fill some social if other people join you.

NOTE: You can influence people to do your term paper which is the absolute best way to go so you can meet your sim's needs while getting their learning done at the same time. Of course if they are a sim with learning aspiration, they will want to write their term paper and you can earn 3,000 aspiration points for letting them do so.

MONEY: Your sim can work part-time in the cafeteria if they live in a dorm to earn some cash. Your sim will earn 10 simoleons for every 10 minutes worked, but it increases their needs quickly. Your sim can also tutor other sims by clicking on the other sim's assignments for simoleons.

FINAL EXAMS: Your sim(s) will have to take EIGHT "final exams" - two for each semester they are in school. After each exam your sim will need to do more assignments, research, write term papers, and earn skills in order to maintain the coveted dean's list scholarship of $1200 simoleons. Each year your sim is in college and each semester gets harder than the last with more research, assignments, etc to get your sim to max their learning potential.

MOVIES: There are several movies you can view if you get certain things to happen in your game, but FYI you will only see the graduation movie if your sim actually has a graduation party. They will change into their gown at the beginning of the party and the movie comes up at the end. I did not get the movie when I moved my sim out without the party.

BUGS & KNOWN FIXES:
* other sims quit moving/stuck - have your sim talk to them
* other sims won't stop researching - have your sim
call this sim from a community lot
* your sim's arm gets stuck out/up - have your sim play
chess
* your sim wants a party, but phone does not give option of
throw party - save game, go all the way out and start
the game over and try again. This will not work if your
sim is already in the middle of throwing a party.
* your sim can't talk/interact with someone researching
except to research with them - call from community lot

CHEATS
* go to buy mode and buy expensive items, floors, paint,
etc for the dorm you want to move your sim into
* move your sim in, claim door
* your sim can sell ANY dorm items
* your sim can replace expensive wallpaper with cheap - $
* your sim can replace expensive flooring with cheap - $
* immediately after a final exam, your sim sometimes has
the option to go to class (again!) which may increase
learning. I haven't tried it.
* have your sim interact (talk for example) to a sim that
is not done with their assignment. The other sim will
quit and stand up. Cancel whatever you told your sim to
do to them and have them "tutor for simoleans". You may
earn anywhere from 6 to 48 or even 52 simoleans.