If a farmer finishes for the day, loads up his console and loads up Farming Simulator is that farmer really finished for the day?
If anyone looks at Farming games and thinks no one will play these, they are extremely mistaken. Farming games do have quite a large audience of all ages and all gamers, more than people would expect. For example, I love the Halo games and racing games, but I do love playing Train Sim World 2020. There are other farming games like Farming Together but that's not really a simulation game, that's more of a kid friendly farming game but surprisingly quite fun, which from the pictures I saw I didn't really think it would be.
What is Farming Simulator you ask? You are a farmer (obviously) and you run your own farm. Now there are a lot of responsibilities and when I say a lot, I mean it is madness if you want to do it all on your own, but I'll expand on that shortly. I'll go over how I started my journey with this game. Loaded it up, nice looking UI, nice and simple, which is just how I like it. I immediately went to the tutorial as the only thing I know how to do in simulation games is drive trains and drive cars.
Now the first thing you need to know about this game in case you didn't know when it comes to farming, it's extremely repetitive, as in driving back and forth over a field you cultivate, sowing seeds and waiting to harvest the crops. You get a walkthrough on the vehicles you'll get to use along with the trailers, plant spray to protect them, equipment to destroy weeds before they can affect your crops, bailers and more. It is amazing how much detail this game goes into when it comes to the different equipment available, along with the processes, tasks and more. You will need to switch vehicles as well as refuel them when necessary.
The graphics for this game are nice. I'm playing this on an Xbox One X so I can't really comment on the PC or PS4 versions. The controls feel quite clunky when driving, which doesn't help since when it comes to tending with your fields, you'd prefer to do smooth turns to make sure you have completed every part however if you are in the interior camera view of the vehicle and you move the left stick a tiny bit your person spins the wheel about 1000 times at the speed of light. It's a shame of the lack of camera views in this game. From what I've discovered you can only use chase camera view and first person inside vehicles, it would be good if they had a Grand Theft Auto 1 & 2 style birds eye view camera so you can see your progress from above or a bumper view of the vehicle. This game is still being supported with this version being the new Platinum Edition so there is hope that this could be implemented.
But what's the goal of this game? To make money of course! And what I do like about this is there are plenty of ways to make money in this game such as growing and selling crops, loading and selling bails, cutting down trees and selling the wood and more. What I do like about this game is you don't have to take just one route to success, you can take numerous and even hire staff to do additional tasks for you. That is why I mentioned it being madness to try and do it all on your own at the start because there are so many tasks, responsibilities, objectives, equipment that it would be insane to do this all yourself so the fact you can hire staff to help you out and the AI system is actually really good. I occasionally check their progress just to make sure it's all going as planned as if they are real players taking the mick or something.
Why the Platinum Edition? This edition over 35 vehicles and equipment from the CLAAS product range. These include the following vehicles and equipment: ARION 660-610, AXION 870-800, AXION 960-920, XERION 5000-4000, TUCANO 580, JAGUAR 960 TT, CARGOS 760, ROLLANT 455, DISCO 1100 C, DISCO 3600 FC and more.
Now if you asked me what these vehicles specialise in, I honestly couldn't remember off of the top of my head. There is definitely not a shortage of vehicles, equipment, tasks and money-making techniques but this game requires dedication and patience. I can tell that a lot of work and research went into the development of the farming simulator games, most simulation games require a lot of research to make it a true simulator, not all simulation games do this since a few of them have actually given me migraines playing them wondering how they can be called a simulator.
I would recommend this game with the expansions if you are willing to put in the time, dedication and are patient. If you are more of a fast-paced person then this game really isn't for you but then again this is the case with all simulation kind of games. You may not like farming but you may love flight sims or train sims. You have to appreciate the detail and dedication that the devs have given for this game though. It could have been the case of drive over a field, then sell but nope, you have to drive over, put the work in yourself and hire others to help you out, take care of your fields and crops, keep refuelling your vehicles and use them correctly.
I'd recommend this game to the farming enthusiasts or anyone that likes a simulation game that comes with a lot of work and a lot of detail to truly capture the farming experience within your own home. The only experience I have with a farm is the loud sheep shouting from across the field from my flat at early hours in the morning just to remind you that they exist.