Developer: Giants Software
Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Mac
Tested on: PC
Farming Simulator 19 – Review
It is that time of the year again to wipe the dust off your cowboy hat, grab that trucker cap, dial the radio to 92.5 Country FM, put the wheat straw in your mouth and cultivate the lands. Farming Simulator makes its two-yearly return (with exception of the mobile port in 18) and a lot of improvement has been made over the years, increasing the realism of the game. Some might even worry the simulator is becoming a bit ‘too’ realistic.
Story
One thing absent from each Farming Simulator title is a storyline. You can, however, choose between three difficulty settings that each have their little background. You can start out as a small farm owner with a decent starting capital, gear and land (easy). Be a man with a larger cash pile but needing to buy everything (medium). If you want the full hardcore simulation you can be a guy or gal that has little money, no land and no tools with a realistic economy (hard).The game just goes as your cash flows which means going bankrupt will end your game but if you make it big time, you can brag about being the top farmer of the town.
Graphics
The first thing that is immediately noticeable is how the graphics have improved over the years. Nice but simple graphics are typical for Farming Simulator and most of the time these games feel empty due to the large locations you play in. More specifically, to save up on resources, background items such as buildings and cars get repeated quite often. This doesn’t really hurt the gameplay but shows that the main focus is on content and graphics come later.
Overall, everything looks nice and neat and the game does outshine in the amount of fine details of foreground items. For example, you start with a clean vehicle, but you will notice that after a while of driving in the field, your tires and rims start to get dirty. This looks amazingly realistic and the more you work your vehicle does without cleaning, the grimier it gets. Farming the crops also makes dust fly around, so all the small details of doing your work are present in this game.
Sound
Just like any of the other Farming Simulator games, the sounds are quite normal. When working on the field, you hear the roaring of machines, birds singing and your trusty radio playing country music. What is cool is that you can choose to only have radio in the vehicles for realism or have radio playing everywhere you go, even outside. Overall, the sounds are like vanilla ice-cream: it’s good but nothing special.
Gameplay
Farming Simulator 19 is, as the name implies, a game that simulates cultivating the land. You start out in one of three scenarios mentioned earlier in one of two locations: Ravenport U.S.A or the British countryside of Felsbrunn. If you decide to be a new farmer in Ravenport, there is an option to begin with a tutorial. This is short but ideal to get you going very quickly. The game starts depending on what type of difficulty you have selected. As a New Farmer, you already own some equipment to get you started, with some crops already grown and land at your disposal, which is the best way for new players to begin. If you want carte blanche with what you buy and get, it might be preferable to be Farm Manager. If you are a die-hard player that loves a good challenge, you can start from scratch with only a limited amount of cash and no property. If you need some extra dough before your crops are fully grown, there is a new feature in this title: you can do missions for other farmers to help them out, getting a nice payout in the progress. For some missions, you will have to rent gear, if you don’t own it already, which can be done at the local shop for a fair price and the payment just gets deducted from your salary. Don’t forget that you are not an errand boy, cultivating the land is what you live for.
The game is slightly more realistic than the previous version but as realism is on an all-time high with these games you notice various improvements but remains the same in large lines. There are more vehicles, more tools, more livestock and three different starting modes, but overall, this game has remained pretty much the same. When your pockets are full of cash, you can choose to greatly expand your farm, buy fields and purchase more vehicles with different tools to be able to grow the crops that are in high demand. Watching the economy is an important part of the game as some products will earn you more than others and this can fluctuate over time.
Controlling the game is easy: just like in the other titles, PC users have the ability to use both mouse and keyboard combination or to plug in a controller. The biggest difference is that a keyboard will have all the actions available at once, while the controller (limited in buttons) will have three option menus that require a held button to access them. Both play quite nicely and the cruise control option makes for a nicer experience. Also this title is really fun to play online with friends as you can just goof around on the field and laugh at each other. If, however, you are less fortunate (i.e., you don’t have friends with the game), you can always hire workers to do some jobs for you. With the large amount of options available for these workers, you can customize it fully to your liking.
Conclusion
Farming Simulator 19 uses the same formula as the previous iterations, so you essentially do the same things you always have done.They always say about a formula, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. While the game is for a large part the same like its predecessors, all the new stuff can be a good reason to upgrade to this year’s new release. There is new and more content for you to play with: three starting modes, two beautiful locations and nice details. It scores a bit higher than its predecessor because of the many nice improvements but is a bit drawn back because of the slightly bland graphics.
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