If running a hospital wasn’t enough for you, Two Point Studios, the British video game company responsible for 2018’s Two Point Hospital is back at it again and this time, it’s bringing the antics on to the undergrads and its faculty members. And much like the witty and quirky residents and patients on Two Point Hospital, Two Point Campus tries to achieve that same level of wacky humor we came to love four years ago. You don’t just get the weirdly athletic sport junkies nor the robotic nerds in college but also a bunch of others that just want to make you scratch your head as to why this isn’t part of the real world’s curriculum in the first place. But did it succeed though? Well, if taking clownery courses doesn’t give it away, I don’t know what will.
To put it simply, Two Point Campus puts more emphasis on fun and humor than the sweaty and serious tones of management simulation games. So if you’re looking for anything that focuses more on the nitty-gritty aspects that goes into simulations, then this is not the right game for you. Because what Two Point Campus hopes to give here is the fun of the casual simulation where running a campus can be more about trying to figure out how many water dispensers can you fit in a single room more than it is about giving the best educational guidance campuses are supposedly required to give out to their students.
From humble beginnings to wacky endings
Two Point Campus starts you off small… giving just the basic rundown of everything you need to know at the start of the campaign and then some. From having a single lecture hall for students to learn to adding specific rooms like a Science lab to do all the fancy Science-y things that people would do on a fancy Science-y lab. Adding a dormitory for students to have a place to rest and change while also giving them the basic rooms for hygiene like toilets and bathrooms pretty much covers up most of their basic needs. That and the 30+ stalls selling hotdogs and coffee pretty much sums up Two Point Campus’ early stages. Eventually, the game ramps up its coverage and scale. Not only does it let you add more courses over the coming semesters, but you also gain more students to fill up the hallways and as such putting a need to more classrooms and other necessities that one may need. But what’s great here is that most of their needs is either easily managed through the mail which you’ll be able to check all at once or as they come in or just noticing the overhead bubbles that comes up over their head will let you know what needs to be done in most cases.
Each level or rather campus of the campaign also has certain objectives to be able to earn a star on that specific campus. Completing objectives like adding more lecture halls and teachers or students passing with a specific grade will then allow you to unlock more campuses that focuses on unique curriculums and thus giving you more ways to enjoy the game be it a wizardry school or a cheeseball powerhouse while also providing more aspects of the game to keep it from being stale and repetitive. And that’s what really scared me in the beginning. How much does Two Point Campus has to offer to keep the level of fun afloat when each campus pretty much starts you off almost similarly to one another other than what courses it offers at first. But apparently, I was only scratching the surface on the first two levels of my adventure in Science and Culinary. As each of the next campuses not only offer some wacky courses to play around with but also more unique and interactive rooms that can affect how some aspects of the game work and thus adding in more depth to the overall experience.
The quirkiness of its inhabitants is silly yet addictive to look at
I was definitely blown away with how much this game grabbed me by the neck to keep me playing for extra-long hours much more than my boss has me on balls and chains at this point. There’s a level of finesse when it comes to creating a visually stunning game without it being visually and graphically stunning. This is definitely not the most crisp and visually detailed game but the cartoony look of the world and its inhabitants has a certain charm that I can only described as something magical as you zoom in through each and every inch of its classrooms and hallways and see the humor and silliness they’ll be doing moments later. The animation that went through this game speaks in volumes if you can just stare at what they’re doing for a few minutes and never get bored at it. Although maybe try to not hover over too long near the bathrooms especially when a family member is coming to your room unannounced.
In conclusion, Two Point Campus is one that tried and achieved what it was going for and in my honest opinion, succeeds in doing just that. The humor is there while also providing some sort of challenge to make the management simulation game something that shouldn’t be taken for granted especially on later levels where there’s a deeper need for classroom spaces and the smaller starting funds to start the year. Having to play sandbox mode with everything it has to offer also just straight up gives fuel to the imagination on how wacky I can get a school going which provided quite a lot of entertainment after doing a couple of levels in the campaign. There’s also a lot of unlockable customization options there which honestly makes the campaign mode a lot more fulfilling as you go from one unlockable to the next as you gain the resources to pay for them.
Reviewed on PlayStation and Xbox Series of consoles
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