PN Review: Farming Simulator 14 (3DS)

Life on the farm to most people, sounds pretty boring. But life on a virtual realistic farm?! Yep…it’s also just as boring. This may be a good game to buy if you have plenty of time to waste and need something to keep your fingers busy, but I say that lightheartedly. As I, Kaelyn Daugherty have never ‘almost’ fallen asleep during a game like I did with this one.

 As soon as you choose a save file, Farming Simulator 14 drops you right in the middle of nowhere and expects you to begin farming as if you’ve been doing this for years. I start out in a red tractor, a quick explanation pops up telling me to’ harvest the wheat’ that has grown in my field by driving over it. After I was done with about half of my wheat field I needed to empty my workload so I could harvest more crops. I didnt know where to go or how to do it but I was determined to accomplish my mission. After pointlessly driving my tractor around for 5 minutes I finally figured out I could change vehicles using the D-pad. So once again I was aimlessly exploring the terrain with no idea what to do, the only difference was that my new wheels were a lot faster.

I was super confused about what I was suppose to be doing. This game gave me no explanation or tutorial telling me what to do or how to do it.  I even started my file on beginner mode, basically telling the game “HEY I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT IM DOING, HELP ME!”. After checking to see if I was stupid or if other players had the same problem I was having, I discovered I was not alone. A lot of people recommended that you read the entire game manual before starting this game. Which I find to be such a chore. But if your going to be playing this game and you want to fully understand it expect to use your game manual.

Once you start learning how to manage everything and earn more money it starts moving along a bit more. It just takes a while to get to that point. Theres a lot of sowing seeds (you only have 3 crops to choose from)  and harvesting to keep you busy. During the games very mundane farming tasks, random missions will pop up on the touch screen saying that there was a lost shipment that was dropped. You have the option of going and getting the shipment which is conveniently located on your handy town map. These missions will earn you extra money that you can buy farm upgrades and equipment with. Dont ask me what any of the equipment does though. Even though there are tons of different vehicles and attachments you can choose from there is no explanation for any of them, leaving me feeling clueless again.

One convenient feature is that you can put some of your vehicles on cruise control, that way you can do other jobs without having to give your full attention to the slower tasks. You can also have animals that produce goods you can sell for profit but besides that theres no real interaction with them. While exploring the surrounding town I discovered there are no people in this game. Only cars that are extremely patient while being rammed by a big red tractor. There are a lot of spots throughout the town where you can buy more land to expand your farm and a few houses for show here and there. There was also no background music, so whilst on my super exciting farming adventure all I get to hear is random outdoorsy noises and vehicle motors.

 I will say that this is the first game i’ve played in the Farming Simulator series from GIANTS Software. So I apologize to any of the veterans out there who enjoy this series. I have to admit that the 3D graphics were pretty enjoyable. The buildings, vehicles and landscape all looked good while using that feature. Thats probably one of the only compliments I have for this game. I hate to give any farming sim a bad review because I usually enjoy these types of games but I found myself utterly bored and I lost interest very quickly. Like I said earlier you may be able to enjoy Farming Simulator 14 after studying your game manual thoroughly, its just not my cup of tea. So if you have a whopping $29.99 thats just burning a hole in your suspenders and you’d love to harvest wheat all day every day this is the game for you!