The Sims and expansions; what one calls milking, the other sees as a disc filled with nice additions to the game. I won't be joining this discussion, for that you'd better read Zwan's most recent column: "EA, the big, bad beast".

The long expected Sims 2 let you follow the entire lifecycle of your sims, from birth to adultery and -finally- their death. There was only one comments on this: the step from child to adult is so big that even Little Thumblin with his 7-mile boots would be jealous. As usual EA listened very carefully to the audience and released University.

This is the first renewing: the age category of a young adult, also known as student or drunk. From the moment your child becomes a young adult you get the choice to go to university or not. It's advised to study as otherwise you'll go straight to full adult... very weird!

So, you've arrived at a collega dorm, what no? The idea is of course to get good grades and you can - after having picked a course - immediately start working on excercices. Luckily EA has also integrated the phenomenon of manipulation in the game which is immediately the second new thing; you can collect influence points and use them to command other sims. You want that bookworm to do your work? No problem, with the necessary amount of influence points it will be done!

You can also have some make you dinner or clean while you watch TV yourself, but you can also do practical jokes with your collected points. For instance you can give a nerd the assignment to let the sprinklers go off over some bullies and watch the result! Ambiance guaranteed! Thanks to the new objects you can do even better things, have you ever seen a cow-like plant eat someone, to afterwards be milked with lifejuice ? I, after playing this expansion, have!

You can join a fraternity and - if you really do your best socially - in a secret society. So secret that no-one knows of its existence and that's good. Bad grades ? Too low on cash ? All these problems are gone... what hacking and a printing machine for money can't do!

A good example of a student's passing of time is music: buy a stereo or mp3 player or go for the real stuff; a guitar or drumset. If things start to go well you can join a band and collect fame and fortune. Furthermore you can throw parties, flirt with anyone you meet, run through campus naked, ... life can be such a bliss when you're young!

Since Maxis still have an educational function as game developer you'll never find any drugs or alcohol in the entire Sims series. Also physical violence is limited to pillow fights or "cartoonish" swirling around in a sand cloud. You'll have to do without cantus or bloody fights between student fraturnities, a bit disappointing but understandable.

I for one have amused myself several hours with this expansion and student life. Things go a bit fast, before you know it the semester is over and you may start working again (or have others working for you) to get good grades. If you don't succeed your exams, you'll have to redo your semester. Who fails again gets thrown out of school and may begin his life as an adult. Passing your exams is extremely easy if you take some time to prepare for them. Also you might try for a romance with your teacher, good grades guaranteed!

When you've gotten your degree, you've also evolved your sim. Not only be increasing your abilities but also because you can get 2 extra wish slots that make your life easier later on. Each study also has some accompanying (new) jobs that will earn you more money and with which you can get a promotion easier. Things a degree can do!

As usual, EA focuses on an audience that's as wide as possible. You can play this game on an average Windows XP pc. Graphically nothing has changed and everything still looks sweet thanks to the Sims 2 engine.