Farming Simulator 15 Review

Have you ever wanted to be a farmer? Hmm not really…no.. Do you want to play a vaguely accurate game about farming? Yeah not so mu..oh wait, hang on this isn’t actually half bad. So I got in to my little tractor and drove to a field full of wheat and hopped out, then jumped into my combine harvester all the while with the wurzels famous song in my head. Chugging along soaking in the atmosphere, birds singing as I kept a steady 6mph. Looking around (as you have plenty of time) you notice the graphics are good but nothing special but doesn’t distract you away from the gameplay as this is the heart of this simulator.

The wealth of activities you can do is chopping down and replanting trees with machinery or a chain saw and buying an entire menagerie of farming equipment. To make a steady income you can place bee hives, green houses, solar panels and the farming holy grail….wind turbines (once you have enough cash) that will turn you a healthy profit. Pretty much everything is upgradable, the more money your farm makes the more money you have to upgrade you equipment like your plough and tractor etc. You can even hire farm hands to assist you in your day-to-day chores. Also in-game cash buys you more farming animals (my girlfriends favourites were particularly the cows and chickens) and also you can buy various crops such as corn, potatoes, barley, wheat etc. Various trees can be grown and cut down for logs all helping with the income you need to progress with the game.

The maps are massive but you can luckily switch between any of your vehicles with the d-pad making the gaming experience easier and much more fluid, strategically placing you tractor, combine harvester, trailer or car can save you a lot of traveling time. Even though there is a trophy/achievement for driving over a thousand miles which will take rather a long time as the majority of farm vehicles aren’t what you’d call quick. The place do life in this game is slow but steady, there isn’t much urgency unless you take on a mission from a notice board which are scattered around the map. They range from delivering a certain amount of crops, produce or wood to a specific location, or mowing a local residence lawn (that turns out to be a massive field).

Additionally you can even try your luck and hunt for gold coins scattered throughout the world which is an awesome quest but also frustrating at the same time. They’re tiny and quite hard to find but I think I’m up to an awe-inspiring fourteen so I’ll put my plans to build eldorado on hold for a while.

The game offers that same calm, relaxing, therapeutic feeling that I get from MineCraft it’s just great to sit back and relax, tea on a coaster beside me as I just glide through without any real hassle. You won’t find any zombies jumping out at you (every game has a zombie now, it’s a gaming staple) or aliens hidden in the barn, I have looked.

I believe this game ought be rated in a few different ways, I didn’t mind it but it was quite fun in the first few hours so my score would be about seven out of ten, my girlfriend loved it. She drove around on a tractor, bought every animal she could get her electronic hands on and told me it’s at least a nine out of ten. People that like the idea of farming or enjoy similar games as a whole, would probably raise that score to its maximum. It’s well set out game and encourages you to keep progressing to grow your farm. Although it’s valued at £30 which is rather steep in my view. Seeing how happy it makes some people and personally thinking it isn’t a bad game I give it 8/10.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.