Reader Submitted: Game Review - Farm Simulator 17

by Rita Mariner

Have you ever wanted to be a farmer?  Well in real life, I had several relatives who were, so playing this new addiction, was like coming home for me.  I saw a couple of my Second Life friends playing this on line video game and finally decided to check it out, on Steam.  Farm Simulator 17 ( it is up to 19 now).  I started to play and once you figure it out, can be quite addicting.

First off the game does have a bit of a learning curve and the game tutorials suck, so don't waste your time with them.  Go up on You Tube and watch actual videos done by actual players and see how they play the game.  It will save you a lot of screaming and pulling out of fur.  Trust me!

You can play the game, either as a single player, or in multi-player, your choice, You also get a choice of maps to pick from to play on.  I have only done Goldcrest, so I have no idea what the others have to offer.  You can grow crops of 10 different types, raise livestock or doing logging, depending on the farm you pick.

You start out with a basic set of farm equipment, I have three tractors, cultivator, sower, harvester, pickup truck, tipper, a house you can't use. a silo and some sheds and out buildings. You also start out in debt, $55,000.  Each day at midnight, you are hit with vehicle maintenance, land maintenance and debt maintenance, so you better start earning some money off your 3 fields right away.

Fortunately, crops grow fast and they start you off with your first set of seeds and fertilizer, as part of your setup.  You get to pick what crops you can grow, based on the equipment you have available.  You can't grow all the crops available, some require specialize and expensive equipment.

Now if you decide to start off on Goldcrest map, there is an interesting feature to that map.  100 Gold Nuggets!  If you find all 100 Gold Nuggets, the game will credits you with 1 Million in game dollars.  To help you out, you only have to find the first 10, once you stumble across them, which really isn't all that hard.  The first one is in your Chicken Coop.  The other 90 will pop up on the map and you just have to move to them to collect them.  Most are fairly easy to collect.  Others are more difficult, you will need one of your tractors, so you will have a means to climb up to get to the roofs of several of the buildings where the nuggets resided.

How you spend you Million Dollars, once you get is pretty much up to you.  I spent mine, paying off my debt and then buying all the Baling equipment I would need. Also picked up a 4th field and added a couple of upgrades to my land, to boost my income.  Like Bee houses and Solar panels.

You will find as you play,  you will have a lot of work to do, more than you would like, but the game has provided you with an assist, or Helpers.  Remember this though, the Helpers are dumber than a box of rocks.  So they can handle only the simplest of tasks.  Plowing, Cultivating, Sowing, Harvesting anything else and they look at you funny. Also they are easily blocked by anything and can't figure a way around it.  So you will have to do many tasks yet, yourself. As well as, bailing out helpers that get blocked.  The one advantage Helpers have over you.  They can work in the dark!

As you play, you will unlock achievements, I have completed about half of mine, going broke is one I doubt I will make, since I always have a positive bank balance.

Plus to make extra cash, in between harvesting your stuff, you can look at the map and see what other fields around you need work and hire yourself out to them for money..  Now these other job are time time sensitive, so you need to complete them within the required time, which usually isn't that hard.  I usually get them done ahead of time.  I not only get the regular payment, I get a time bonus.  Also the more you work a field around you, if and when you decide to buy it, the cheaper it is.

So if you looking for a game that is relatively slow paced, yet has some challenge to it, Farm Simulator 17 or 19 might fit your bill.  It's a nice way to spend a couple hours, racing around a field at 6mph!

Rita Mariner