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By Brad Cook

You worked hard to earn a college degree and put it to good use in a career accessible only to people like you. When the dummy who lives next door (and who didn’t attend a university, of course) electrocuted himself while trying to fix the dishwasher you asked him to repair, you brought him back to life with the Resurrect-O-Nomitron. Then you put him to work producing Simoleons for you with Genuine Buck’s Famous Counterfeiting Machine.

How else are you going to pay for all your teen Sims to attend prestigious Académie Le Tour?

With Great Power…

We all know the importance of a good college education, so don’t skimp on your Sims’ post-high school needs either. With this Sims 2 expansion pack, you can turn your teen Sims into young adults and send them off to a campus affiliated with your neighborhood. Attend classes, cram for exams, work part-time, throw toga parties, join fraternities and sororities, and even enter the ranks of a secret society, if you can figure out how to make friends with three of its members.

After you graduate, you’ll own a faux-sheepskin diploma suitable for hanging on your wall, and you’ll have access to four careers not available to ordinary Sims. Each of those career paths features a special reward, and every college graduate Sim can earn Genuine Buck’s Famous Counterfeiting Machine, if they accumulate enough aspiration points.

Sims 2: University also adds the ability to influence other Sims, starting with your college days. Gaining friends and achieving wants add points to your influence meter, while losing relationships and experiencing fears deduct them. You can use your influence points to try to convince other Sims to do anything from performing your job to making WooHoo with another Sim to pulling a prank.

Your success depends on your influence points total, as well as your relationship to the Sim you’re trying to convince. And don’t forget that you can also use your influence to make other Sims perform good acts, such as convincing two former friends to reconcile, so use your powers wisely, my young adult.

New Toys

No matter how your Sims’ college days turn out, this expansion pack also offers a variety of new features that make their lives better. New objects in the game include the mini fridge, various musical instruments, a bubble blower, cell phones and handheld videogame systems, and a makeup table where Sims can drastically alter their appearance. New lifetime wants, such as reaching a golden wedding anniversary or attaining the highest level in a career, grant 25,000 aspiration points and 10,000 influence points when they’re achieved.

Sims can also now merge their households, which comes in handy when you have two Sim families who would be better off combining their assets. It’s also a useful function for single adult Sims who want to move in together before tying the knot. A Sim may want to know that the Sim they love is really an egomaniac who lives to influence others to do terrible things — merging households without committing to a marriage can be of some help there.

Think of it as a life lesson for the real world.

The Sims 2

Learn more about The Sims 2 by reading our previous feature which covers the original version of the game.

Hangin’ in the Quad. Juggle relationships with schoolwork and, perhaps, even a part-time job.

Site: The Sims 2: University
Publisher: Aspyr Media
Developer: Maxis
Genre: Simulation

Game Media

Available for online ordering 24 hours a day, every day.

Commencement. Time for these Sims to embark on their careers. Let’s hope they’ve improved more than just their social skills.

System Requirements:

Full version of The Sims 2
Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher
1.2GHz PowerPC G4 processor or higher
256MB of RAM (512MB recommended)
32MB ATI Radeon 9000 or NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 graphics card (64MB recommended)
2GB hard disk space
DVD drive

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What’s New in The Sims 2: University

The New Neighborhoods

The Sims 2: University features three new neighborhoods that contain the colleges included with the expansion pack. You can also build your own college campuses. You can turn teen Sims found in the new neighborhoods into young adults and send them to college, but their skill levels will be comparable to those of baby Sims.

However, Sims whose lives you manage from birth can add to their skills while at college, enabling them to get even further ahead by the time they graduate and become adults.

Sim State University: This school was founded by Sims who insisted on high standards of learning. At the prestigious Urele-Oresha-Cham House, diverse personalities threaten to pull apart the oldest fraternity on campus. Meanwhile, the sisters at Tri-Var Sorority must contend with Heather and Brittany, a pair of annoying members who make recruiting difficult. And Jane, Martin and Allegra are three loners who decided to move into their own apartments rather than endure dorm life anymore. They may be missing out on the college experience, though.
La Fiesta Tech: It may sit in the middle of the desert, but this college offers plenty of fun for Sims who love to socialize. At Oresha-Hoh-Var Fraternity, Guy Wrightley, whose great-grandfather founded the chapter, struggles with competing desires: living up to his family’s high academic standards versus going to parties. He certainly enjoys spending time at Tri-Fruhm Sorority, where the girls find themselves in danger of going on double-super-secret probation if they don’t cut back on social activities and start hitting the books. Off campus, the Shifting Paradymes left the dorms to focus on their music while Francis Worthington lives in his own home, thanks to his rich parents, and tries to make his Simoleons last.
Académie Le Tour: The most prestigious of the three campuses, this school does its best to balance old and new, holding up entrenched traditions while encouraging free thinking. The main storylines here revolve around off-campus trials and tribulations. Delilah lives alone, believing she prefers solitude to the bother of having roommates, while Roxie shares a place with her dorky brother and struggles to get along with him. Mitch and Max have been friends since their first day of school, but now they’re living off-campus and experiencing the potential pitfalls found there.

New Careers

Use that faux-sheepskin to your advantage with four new careers. They require high skill levels and a lot of friends, but they pay off with better work hours and more Simoleons than the other careers in the game. Not only that, but they offer unique rewards for Sims who manage to achieve a high enough job level.

There are 11 majors available to college students, each of which opens up two or three different careers. You can also choose one of the jobs included with the original Sims 2 if you’re not interested in one of the new careers. And don’t forget that Simoleon-poor Sims can work at a part-time job, such as tutor or barista, while attending college.

Show Business: You should major in Drama, Economics or Political Science to gain access to this career, which is the highest-paying in the game but requires many friends and three skills at level 10 — rather than two — at the beginning. Start as a screen test stand-in and work your way up to bit player, cartoon voice, blockbuster director and, finally, icon.
At job level six, supporting player, you get access to Dr. Vu’s Automated Cosmetic, which gives your Sim a makeover. Just make sure it doesn’t go crazy and give them a facial rearrangement they’ll regret.
Natural Scientist: This path is open to graduates who majored in Biology or Mathematics. Start your career as a rat keeper and move on to clam wrangler, dinosaur cloner and, at the top, ecological guru. Level six, rogue botanist, lets you claim this career’s reward: Laganaphyllis Simnovorii, also known as the “cow plant.” If you’re wondering what it does, watch the movie “Little Shop of Horrors” for a clue.
Paranormal: Choose Philosophy, Physics or Psychology to access this career. Pay your dues as a psychic phone pal before moving on to Tarot card reader, hypnotist, UFO investigator and, ultimately, cult leader. Level five, medium, offers the Resurrect-O-Nomitron, which brings deceased Sims back to life, if you bargain correctly with the Grim Reaper. A bit of advice: Don’t spend many Simoleons if you want to bring back a dead Sim as a zombie. However, if you’re too stingy, nothing will happen.
Artist: Major in Art or History if you want this creative career. You may begin on the lowest rung of the ladder working as a canvas stretcher, but eventually you’ll move on to such positions as souvenir whittler, comic book penciller, and art forger before attaining the title of visionary. Wedding photographer, which comes at level five, lets you obtain the Luminous Pro Antique Camera, which enables your Sim to take photos that she can sell or hang on the wall.