Game review: Farming Simulator 2013

These days there are plenty of simulation type games out there - flying, driving cars and trains and, of course, there is the business simulations.

Farming Simulator 2013 by focus home interactive is one of them and is interesting to a point but really a bit of a niche game.

Now if you’re looking for car chases and hordes of zombies invading your farm then read no further, this is all about running a modern farm and believe it or not does become engrossing to a degree.

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You begin with a basic farm in a small country town and the objective is to plant crops, buy livestock and generally do what farmers do.

You start off with a small selection of crops which you then plant and nurture, sell them and put the money back into the farm,.

There’s no collectables or real goal in this simulator (it’s not what I would describe as a game), all you do is plant your crops feed your livestock, manage your money and invest in your farm to make it bigger.

There are an incredible amount of investments available to you, from solar energy to around 40 different farm vehicles.

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This is a massive game with no objectives or missions, just you and your farm and a bunch of AI locals that you can`t interact with, unless you hire them to do work for you.

If hammering around race tracks or flying bombing missions is your thing then this is not for you as the most exciting thing to do vehicle wise here is sitting in a tractor and slowly driving in a straight line.

OK you get to do it in a variety of outrageous looking vehicles but it’s not exactly heart racing stuff.

There are plenty of tutorials for learning to drive, but you will have to find out for yourself where the selling points are in this massive open world map.

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There are some side missions available which involve moving stuff or maybe cutting some grass - all very nice but not overly exciting.

Payment is good but the idea of mowing a lawn in a game is beyond tedious if you ask me.

Farming simulator 2013 is a single player game, yet it does have an online multi-play element, but be warned these people take their farming seriously and if you start messing about then you will be banished.

Graphics aren’t the best I have seen which is good for gamers with quiet low spec PCs but rather dull and uninteresting with pretty basic models and textures.

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Music doesn`t exist in this game at all so if you’re expecting the theme from the Archers or Emmerdale to play as your bopping along in your tractor then you will be disappointed.

The only noise is the monotonous sound of your tractor or whatever vehicle you choose to drive.

Summary

Well what can I say? Farming simulator 2013 is exactly what it says it is a farming simulator. If you have always wanted to be a farmer then by all means have a go. It would have been nice to have maybe a barn fire to put out or being allowed to drive really slowly down country roads with half a dozen cars sitting behind you. It’s not going to light up the gaming charts, yet it does have a large on line following, as for me it’s back to car chases and blowing up zombies.

Farming Simulator 2013

Developer: Focus Home Interactive

Publisher: Focus Home Interactive

PC

Xbox 360®

Playstation 3®

Genre: Farm Simulator

Release Date: October 2012 (pc)

Gameplay: 3/5

Graphics: 2/5

Story: 2/5

Overall: 3/5