PC
Published by UIG Entertainment
Developed by ActaLogic
If you are a fan of games such as Industry
Giant, Transport Tycoon and Capitalism you’ve probably
taken a look at Farming Giant and thought that it’s a game the
might appeal to you. It’s a game that I was sure I would enjoy but
there’s something a little off here. Some aspects of the game make it
look as though the developers were aiming for realism and yet others
make it looks as though they couldn’t give a fig for realism. Some
aspects of the game are enjoyable whilst others are frustrating. In
short, Farming Giant is a real mixed bag that doesn’t live up to
its potential.
In Farming Giant, you’re placed on a
fictitious map that contains several cities named after some of Europe’s
major capitals. The basic idea is to establish your own farm and produce
profitable goods. Each of the cities has different demands and you have
to choose where you’re going to ship the goods. So far so good and to
begin with, the game seems positive. You’ll learn that when growing
fruit, veg and crops you have to take into account the pH value of the
soil in addition to the nutrient content and humidity. You’ll need to
purchase your farming vehicles and appropriate extensions for them so
that fields can be ploughed and seeds sown etc. You’ll also need to make
sure your separate buildings are correctly staffed and are supplied with
water if needed.
With the game going into such detail, you’d
be forgiven for thinking that it was aiming for a high degree of
realism. That isn’t quite the case however and you might be surprised to
learn that the game takes no account of the seasons. That’s not to say
that there’s no weather system in the game however. For instance, hail
can destroy crops and sustained periods of wet weather can lead to your
fields being flooded. Likewise long dry sunny periods can dry out your
soil and you’ll have to use sprinkler systems to hydrate your land.
It’s clear that the developers couldn’t quite
make up their minds as to whether to make this a completely realistic
experience or whether to abide by occasionally cumbersome gameplay
mechanics. Whilst it’s great that you have to purchase a wide range of
vehicles to use on your farm and, in some cases, the necessary
attachments required to perform specific tasks; it’s a chore that these
vehicles are useless unless you lay down roads for them to travel on.
Now I’m sure that in real life, a tractor is capable of driving over
some turf to get to a field in order to plough the land but surprisingly
that’s not the case in Farming Giant, as you’ll need to lay a
road from the garage to the field. To make matters worse the road laying
process is unnecessarily awkward when it should, as in so many others
games of this type, be a simple task. I’m all for having some of
Europe’s best cities in the game but the cities in the game are
fictitious in everything but name. No attempt to model the cities or
their climates has been made.
In a game such as Farming Giant, it’s
preferable to have a tutorial that eases you comfortably into the
experience. Sadly, that’s not the case as the tutorial here simply isn’t
good enough. Having completed the rather laborious tutorial and jumping
into a new game, I found I wasn’t fully aware of all the essential
information that I needed to know. Whilst the game’s tutorial is poor
however, I appreciated how the game only gives you limited access to
crops and livestock during the early phase of the game. You’ll gain
access to everything the game has to offer by levelling-up and unlocking
additional vehicles, buildings, animals, crops etc.
Yes, there are role-playing game elements in
Farming Giant. There are achievements to earn for selling
produce, breeding animals, owning vehicles, buildings and acquiring
specified amounts of land. There are also various trade achievements to
be earned too. Completing achievements will earn you skill points and
you’ll gain skill points when you level-up. Levels are acquired as you
trade specific amounts of plants, animals and produce on the market.
You’ll get to invest your skill points into Technology, Worker and
Produce tech trees. The skills on each of the tech trees can all have a
certain amount of skill points invested in them, which in turn will make
your farm perform more effectively. The game also allows you to reset
your skill points and reallocate them if you wish.
As with any game such as this of course the
idea is to turn a profit and keep your business running as efficiently
as possible. In fact should you run out of money, you would have failed
your scenario. The game does allow you to have loans, in fact, you can
have up to six loans at a time, but loans are never anything other than
an expensive, short-term fix that you’ll want to avoid. That said
however, you do have to exercise some caution when you first begin.
You’re not free to build your farm wherever you see fit and you’ll only
be able to purchase land in the plots that are available for purchase.
You’ll buy a plot of land and in that plot, you’ll place the fields and
buildings that you’ll need. You’ll also need to hire workers and assign
them to your buildings. Work orders, called tasks, need to be created in
order to purchase and deliver goods. Keeping an eye on the market
demands for goods is essential if you’re going to maximise your profits.
The presentation of Farming Giant is
generally fine. All of the information in the game is displayed visually
and there’s no speech here with all of the dialogue being delivered via
text. Graphically speaking, the game is decent enough and should have no
problem running on most PC’s out there at the moment. The graphical
settings are configurable however so details can be turned down if the
need arises. Whilst the graphics aren’t too bad however, the animations
are particularly disappointing. Watching a tractor drive down a
less-than-straight road is actually laughable as both the tractor and
its extension move with about as much fluidity as a plank of wood. The
tractor, on reaching the location, will go through a cycle of animations
before doing what it’s supposed to do. It would have looked better if
the tractor had suddenly appeared at the location and gone straight into
the required action.
There’s no doubt that if you like simulation games then Farming Giant is a game that could appeal to you. On the surface, it certainly appears to have a lot of depth and in some respects, it comes across as though it’s striving for realism. However, there are elements of the gameplay when realism has clearly been thrown out of the window and it’s not always to make the experience less frustrating. In short, there’s a decent game here but you’ll have to be prepared to forgive some odd gameplay mechanics and some minor frustrations here and there.
