As someone who was born and raised in the country I definitely know a thing or two about living on a farm. No I didn’t raise pigs, chickens or cows and no I didn’t work the gruelling hours out in the fields; I was too young for that. What I do remember is having crazy amounts of grass to cut and watching the hay rolls get bundled up before being shipped off for someone who could use them. I also remember playing on a rope swing in the barn. Outside was a glorious place.
I need to be honest with you. After my initial 4 hours of play in Pure Farming 2018 for the PlayStation 4 I came away a bit disappointed. Let me stop you there before you leave the review entirely. This is important. I walked away from this game after 4 hours and started to think about it. The thinking actually led me to liking this game a lot more. Yes the game has flaws. Yes the game isn’t perfect. I was frustrated at the pace. I even cursed at the controls quite a few times. What I forgot was that this game was a simulation of farming and not something that was meant to be quick or instantly engaging. I had to strategize my next moves. I had to enter a zone I had never entered before. This is the moment I then appreciated what Pure Farming 2018 had to offer.
Pure Farming 2018 is a farming simulator developed by Ice Flames and published by Techland Games. Funny enough I actually really enjoyed the first hour of gameplay. Driving my first tractor, harvesting my first field, selling the items to a vendor, getting money and helping another farmer all felt like a true experience and it was engaging because it was quick snippets of quests. The hardest part was when I actually had to start ploughing the fields. This task alone took well over 20-25 minutes of my time and with the controls it was excruciating to play. I am guessing it is meant to be true to what the real experience is but I was really infuriated when I had to pull up my equipment every straight line I ploughed, turn my tractor around, put the machinery back down and do another run (sometimes even missing small sections of the field because I wasn’t straight enough).
After getting through those long sessions of ploughing, sowing and irrigating, I was told I could hire workers to make life easier. This was a turning point in this game. This is the point when I walked away for a bit because I didn’t put much thought into the workers. I was already tired of ploughing, sowing and irrigating the fields myself that I really didn’t think there was an easier option. Guess what? There is and I am so happy I took that absence from the game. All you have to do is prep a field with the proper machinery and then hire a worker to do the actual work while you go around doing your other chores. It was unfortunate that I had to go back to each field to fix some mistakes from the workers (damn, it feels like real life) but this was definitely a much-needed mechanic for the game.
I need to rewind a bit here. There is indeed a story to this game. Your grandfather owned these farms. He got sick and ended up not being able to maintain the farm the way he used to. No one in your family wanted to help with the farm because they had become ‘urbanized’. When your grandfather passes away, he leaves the farm to whoever is willing to maintain it but also leaves a ton of debt. That is where you come in. You are the only one willing to do it and you take on the responsibility of the debt as well. Is this a new story for a simulation genre like this? No. Most simulation titles like this have you taking on the responsibility left from someone else. Nothing original but it gives the game at least something to empathize with.
There are multiple modes you can choose from at the start of the game. Your obvious choice is the campaign mode, which allows you to have somewhat of a story and the ability to freely do as you wish after a while. There is also a challenge mode, which allows you to visit other countries (maps) and complete something specific like growing and harvesting grapes or dealing with a season of drought. These are fun little side missions that I preferred once I got the hang of how everything worked.
The controls are complicated at the beginning. There are a lot of vehicles (with various parts) and a lot of menu options to choose from. The game does prompt you with everything you need to know through a very text-heavy tutorial system. They have to it seems because you would never really be able to figure something out this complex without it. The tutorial comes in email form. Whenever you do anything in this game you will receive an email to help you understand what to do next or how to use an item. You will check back on these emails quite a bit to understand the controls and what they are good for. Memorization is key.
There are two things this game did for me that I am thankful for: fast travel and quick purchasing. Want to go to a shed or vendor that you own or have visited before, respectively? You just have to open up the map and fast travel. Want to purchase gas, machinery or anything else you need? Just go to the respective tab and make the purchase from your handy tablet. Be warned, purchasing from the tablet without going to the vendors will have a price increase but it is definitely worth it for the amount of time it saves you.
Raising livestock was a nice little addition to the game. Animals such as cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits, and sheep can be raised and sold for their respective needs. Definitely a much needed mechanic that takes you away from the fields for a little while.
Pure Farming 2018 is all about rinsing and repeating. You must gain items, sell those items, and then buy better machinery and use said machinery to gain items all over again. Yes, the pace did pick up with better machinery and because of the ability to hire workers but this didn’t fix some of the glaring problems. The models and animations seemed to be cheaply made. For the generation of gaming that we are in now, I want to see the wheat being cut piece by piece and not lumped like oatmeal. The animals looked robotic and I never really grew attached to them because of that reason alone. The trees were basic assets, which also goes for the terrain and buildings. It actually looked like a PS3 game at times. Also, the tutorial emails sometimes left out what you were supposed to do to make something happen. I found myself going to the Internet for answers every once and a while.
Glaring me right in the face was the User Interface and all of its ugliness. This is probably one of the most important pieces to a game because it is always there. Why does the UI look like it was made in a drag-and-scale paint simulator? Everything is bland, blocky, boring and lacks the visual feedback that I needed to feel like I was farming. There seemed to be a lack of effort on this part and it is a shame because there are a lot of cool things that could be happening here for the user to get the true experience needed. I guess the UI matches the effort in the other art assets (they aren’t great) so it kind of makes sense.
Pure Farming 2018 is a much-needed combatant to the ever-popular Farming Simulator most people are used to. It is always nice to see someone take a risk and come out with a title when only one other game of this genre has been dominating for so long. If you are really into farming, and I mean REALLY into it, this may be right down your ally. You will need to walk away from this title like I did. You will need to get past that first ploughing, sowing, and irrigating mission to find out that there is way more to this game. You need to be patient. Was it my type of game? It was for the first hour or two. If you can get past at least 5 hours of this game and truly find out where the beauty lies, you will enjoy this title for what it is: a simulation.
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