Campus Life Review (PC)
Summary: As a college student myself, I sort of had better expectations for what I was getting myself into. Never would I have thought that a game like this would bore and anger me like this one has.
0.4
Dropping Out
A wise man once said, “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” That last one is a lie. Playing this game has absolutely killed any sort of desire to learn I have left.
When you first start Campus Life, it kind of gives you the vibe it isn’t going to be the greatest game ever created. An overwhelming start menu is something developers should try to stray away from, especially from this new life sim developed by GameFormatic. But you never judge a book by its cover, so as hesitant as I was to begin, I clicked start new game, chose a save file and commenced Campus Life.
What I didn’t expect, however, was what I was about to experience.
Character Creation
Now first impressions are everything when it comes to video games for me. An odd intro or a confusing tutorial are one thing, but at least those give you something. Instead, the game drops you into the character creator, easily one of the most simple and unimaginative character creation screens I’ve ever seen, while also seemingly able to be somewhat confusing.
You’ve got your standard hair, body type, eye color, etc., choices that you could probably expect from a game like this. But then you also get to fill out a survey – one that I assume preselects the stats and skills your character has, Fallout-style. You also get goals that you cannot change from the beginning, which is odd because you think for a game based around living out your ideal college life, you’d think you’d get a say in what your initial goals are for school. But nope, from what I’ve tested, whether you want to be an athlete, music or literature major, you better like having the same goals.
However as simple as this screen was, it wasn’t a dealbreaker for me. Sure, maybe it looked a little strange, and sure maybe my hair would clip through my skull, but overall simplicity can be good, and although it didn’t do anything exciting, it didn’t do anything wrong either. Small and easy while being a little bit disorganized, I guess you could say it represents a college student’s life from the get-go. This is just the character creator, right? Surely the game will bring something enjoyable through gameplay, mechanics, visuals or similar, right?
Gameplay
Dropping into the game felt strange. No intro cutscene, no welcome message. You’re just dropped into the campus and you meet your tutorial man, Ray. He acts as campus advisor and gives you the choice between starting the tutorial or just unleashing you onto the school. Nevertheless, I began the tutorial.
Honestly, the movement wasn’t horrible. I mean, you can walk and run as expected, but you can also summon a bicycle that is much faster than running, you just can’t take it indoors anywhere. Makes sense I guess, until you realize you can just spawn the bike out of thin air. And I mean sure, you can do that in Pokémon as well, but at least you get a neat song to go with it.
Anyway, Ray takes you through your dorm, class schedule and making friends, among other things. Every character you run into speaks this pseudo-Simlish where it just sounds like garbled nothingness. And sure, I guess you could say the same thing about the Sims language. Except that I think Simlish actually sounds better for a made-up language, believe it or not. There are two reasons for that.
One, you are constantly talking to Ray and other students during the tutorial and beyond, so it gets pretty annoying hearing it all the time. Yeah, they talk in the Sims, but it’s not constant and it’s certainly not loud enough that you start to get tired of it. Second, Simlish actually puts effort in because they mixed a bunch of languages together and threw in some words that might make you perk up and go, “Huh, that almost sounded like [insert language here].” But here, where talking to people is an important part of the game, I don’t really want to hear someone go “blah, blah, blah” into a mic over and over again. If you can’t do pseudo-Simlish, either have actual voice acting or not have anything at all.
And classes, geez, where do I begin? They really simulated the dullness of taking real life classes because there is just such little substance. You just walk up to the teacher and start the lecture. Now credit where credit is due, you DO have to manage your focus in class well enough to not pass out or become depressed. But that’s really about it. Sometimes a class will have a minigame in which you can either gain or lose points for stats, but it’s never fun. It all just feels like padding to give you because the game is empty.
The gameplay is bare. It’s soulless and has no real weight to it and it feels pointless to go and do anything.
World
Speaking of empty, this campus simultaneously feels packed and desolate at the same time. When you walk into a building, you’ll normally hear audio of people chatting and laughing, but when you see an NPC, they’ll either be walking to a random location (Yes I checked), or they’ll be sitting down doing this head-shaking thing where they look to the left, then right and continue that cycle ad infinitum.
At some point, the game gives you the opportunity to make friends. You can talk and hang out with them, but you can’t really. Hanging out is bugged or something because I couldn’t get it to work properly, and talking to any of your so-called “friends” almost makes it feel like talking to a robot, like the dialogue for each person is AI-generated.
And there is just NOTHING to do. Of course you got classes, you can self-study and “hang out” with friends. But that’s really about it. I’ve checked out the whole campus and there’s pretty much nothing fun to do. The game presents itself like it’s the Sims 4 where the sky’s the limit and you have free will to be whatever kind of college student you want. But I perceived this as an illusion, giving you a false sense of scope while all the while not doing anything to actually provide material for you to play with.
Final Thoughts?
I feel like this game has potential. I don’t want to say it’s a letdown and call it a day, because a game IS there. It’s just lost behind a lot of empty space and false interactions that do not bring you into the world at all, nor feel fulfilling to play.
As a huge Sims fan, this game really let me down. When I was younger, I played a lot of Roblox games that did what this game was trying to do, but did it well. I want to believe they can comeback, especially since it’s only a week old. But with the state it’s in right now, it’s unacceptable. I actually thought this game was early access because of how little content it has, that’s how bad it is.
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