The Good: User directed farming and
animal raising, multiplayer
The Not So Good: No tutorial, lacks
guiding optional objectives, monotonous mechanics, obtuse controls,
insufficient interface, stability issues
What say you? Absent assistance and
repetitive methods wilt this farming simulation: 3/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
The PC is a great resource for weird, strange games from all
corners of the globe. A perfect example is the series of niche
simulators created by Slovene developer ActaLogic and German
publisher UIG: Mining and Tunneling, Snowcats, Airports, Woodcutters, Tow
Trucks, and, of course, Bungee Jumping. Wanting to check out the appeal of
these…interesting…products, I decided to head out to the farm with Agricultural
Simulator - Historical Farming, a semi-sequel in the Agricultural Simulator
series that moves the “action” to the 1950’s through 1970’s in the northern
Alps and Tuscany. So, let’s spread our seeds and see what sprouts!
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The presentation of Agricultural Simulator - Historical
Farming is a mixed bag overall. The animals and farm equipment both look nice,
as you would expect in a game that focuses on animals and farm equipment. The
tractors, plows, harvesters, and other assorted mechanical devices are detailed
replicas of their real-world counterparts. The animals also look good (though
only one model is used for each type, so all cows look identical), although the
animations are a bit repetitive. Your farm buildings aren’t intuitive (the barn
and cellar could have been interchangeable) and are recycled in each game
setting. Agricultural Simulator - Historical Farming also has significant
issues with clipping, with animals and equipment commonly passing through doors
and fencing, which obviously breaks immersion. I also experienced a rather
strange bug: climbing up a ladder threw me into the air on occasion. In addition, buying a second item from the machine shop crashed my game. The sound
design is very basic, with few effects that lack a sense of nature and campy
music as you till your fields. Overall, Agricultural Simulator - Historical
Farming has an acceptable set of graphics and sound effects that do not hinder
the gameplay.
ET AL.
Agricultural Simulator - Historical Farming simulates
historical farming in an agricultural motif. You are given a choice of two
farms (Tuscany or the Alps) that are basically the same (even with identical
buildings, although in a different layout) and no objectives. Intrinsically,
you are driven to make lots of money by growing food and animals, but I would
still like to see some optional goals to shoot for (like breeding pigs or
meeting a quota of corn) beyond a simple sandbox scenario. Conversely, the lack
of objectives means the player is free to do as he (or she, although in the
game your avatar is male) chooses. The game options allow you to adjust the
game speed (you can play in real time, if you are insane) and working day
length, and you can join other prospective farmers online in multiplayer, which
would be a potentially interesting feature if there was more variety in the
game mechanics.
Agricultural Simulator - Historical Farming tries its
hardest to make farming as unintuitive as possible, as the game features no
tutorial and the HTML manual is in German. Part of the difficulty for newcomers
can be attributed to the interface, which uses icons to display where nearby
things can be found or placed, but never explains what the icons actually mean.
Now, I can figure out what an egg stands for, but what about a triangle? Your
first exposure to the game is also spent learning the layout of the farms and
which doors open and which ones do not. There is no minimap and no building
labels, so finding your way around can be difficult. The game and manual really
fail to explain where things are supposed to go, and trail and error is spent
figuring out where to place empty milk jugs, breeding cattle, seeds, hay bails,
tractor attachments, and every other aspect of farm living. The game provides
several camera views, but I would like to use the mouse to change my
perspective in more than just the first person tractor view. The “tab” key
pulls up a menu for advanced actions (like lowering plows) and the “control”
key gives stats describing the current time and stockpile of goods and their
locations (if you can figure out which buildings are which, of course). A lot
more time could have been dedicated towards making Agricultural Simulator -
Historical Farming accessible.
There are two things to do in Agricultural Simulator -
Historical Farming: grow crops and raise animals. The former involves attaching
various tools to your tractor and then driving across your fields, which can be
any area you designate. While this may be realistic, doing the exact same thing,
only with different attachments, is not riveting: attach the plow, then attach
the cultivator, then attach the fertilizer, then attach the planter, then attach
the sprayer, then attach the harvester. The four tractors with twelve
attachments (which must be bought in town, a short tractor ride away) do give
you some toys to play with, but Agricultural Simulator - Historical Farming is
an exercise in tedious repetition. The animals require even less work, as they
are almost completely automated: just place a box near the chicken coop and an
empty milk jug in the barn and you’ll get eggs and milk, respectively. The only
time you’ll have to directly interact with the animals is leading them into the
barn for breeding (two at a time) or loading them on a carrier to bring them to
town for a handy profit. This is probably a good thing, since leading them
involves holding down the mouse button and walking very slowly towards your
destination: a very boring process. I guess that could be said for a majority
of Agricultural Simulator - Historical Farming, which has an uninformative
interface and lack of variety, two things to kill general interest in a
computer game.
IN CLOSING
Unintuitive controls, no tutorial, the lack of objectives,
and repetitive actions mean Agricultural Simulator - Historical Farming will
only possibly appeal to a very small niche. While I like the idea of the game,
the tedious duplication of collecting goods and disdain for in-game help ruins
any appeal the title might have offered. Farming involves doing the same thing
(driving over your fields) with different attachments (plow then cultivator
then seed spreader then pesticide then harvester), and that’s it. Animal
raising involves placing food in specific locations and bins in other locations
to collect milk or eggs, and that’s it. Animals can be bred by locking them in
the barn, or you can sell them in town, but the restriction and repetition of
the actions you are allowed to do makes for some dull gameplay. The game is
also very unfriendly to new players, just providing a bare manual (in German,
no less) and no in-game feedback to serve as any sort of direction. While the
lack of objectives makes Agricultural Simulator - Historical Farming more open
and freeform, it also makes you wonder what exactly to do next. I do like the
prospects of multiplayer, if it weren’t so easy to keep things running on your
own. Only the truly curious that don’t mind infinite reiteration will discover
enough value in Agricultural Simulator - Historical Farming.
