Farming Simulator 19 is the latest instalment of the franchise and has arguably had its biggest leap in popularity and graphics to date, released in late 2018 its found fans wanting a different challenging and relaxing game, but to others, its found a somewhat surprising home to Esports fans
Table of Contents
What they say
“With a complete overhaul of its graphics engine, offering the most striking and immersive visuals and effects to date, along with the deepest and most complete farming experience ever on consoles and PC. Farming Simulator 19 features three distinct open worlds in which to develop and expand your farm, in solo or with friends: two entirely new environments will soon be revealed, as well as an all-improved version of the South American environment, which has been overhauled to take advantage of the new engine’s capabilities.”
“With the addition of new brands, Farming Simulator 19’s garage features the franchise’s most extensive vehicle roster ever. The game also introduces new farming activities, new animals including horses, brand new mechanics, as well as new crops. Farm like never before in 2018! Farming Simulator is stepped up its game with Farming Simulator 19 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC!”
Why Farming Sim?
Through the years Simulation games have been some of my favourites, I lost countless hours to Football manager and Champ manager over that time, I’m far more of a fan of these style simulators or strategies etc, but I don’t always have time to play with them nowadays, often on the PC, I will be playing games that my friends will be.
However I got the chance to play this earlier in the year on the Epic games service, it was actually one of there free games, I started playing it with my friends and got totally hooked, i played single-player, multiplayer and one of our friends even hosted a server as a continuous game.
During this time both Tigger and Roo saw me playing it on and off, and when I wasn’t about I also asked them to help do some of the fields, because as you imagine being a simulation game things can take a while, from that moment they were hooked, Tigger has played it in his cycle of games whereas Boo has played it lots, she used to be gamer but as life changed she did less and less of it, so it was great to see her chilling out and relaxing while playing a game.
How does it work?
The game has 3 main modes Single-player, multiplayer and online server, within the single player you can choose a further three options, this career style allow you to choose to have hardly any money, and tougher start, or an adequate amount of money but you have no land or equipment, or the final easier where you have some fields, equipment and ready to go, you can expand out long term but this will give you a boost up in your start.
Multiplayer can be done in those two other modes, you can essentially do the single-player stuff but your friends can join your game, as long as your on and your game is running, they can join your farm or have there owned, the alternative is you can rent a server (or join one), the idea of this is to have a continuing world happening so anyone in your friends who have the password can jump on and no need to be wondering when the game host will load up his game for you to join lol, its always running, again you can do you own farm on the map or join your friends, your choice.
The customisable part of the game is huge and I could write another article about this, so I will go brief for sake of ease, but trust me there are huge amounts of mods and custom options. In the actual game settings you can change the time, the helpers, factors within the game like, ploughing, withering, lime, crop destruction etc but for you its a little try and error what you like.
The mods as I said is huge, so much so the game has a mod section in its menu to help you out, certainly, for consoles owners, they will not have been used to modding on games, this list you stuff that can help expand your game, some made from Giants (game maker) and some from people all over the world! they can offer you more choice or make a chore easier, or stuff that’s just simply not in the original game, and even Giants themselves think of the idea after launch. These are essentially all free! there are some paid DLC you can buy as well as expansion but it will prompt you.
Overall
This game is surprisingly addictive, most people would be put off with the idea of “farming” and to be fair that’s an unfair assumption of the game, i did that, there’s jobs, achievements, complexity, simulation, managing and driving, far more to it than at first thought. The level of detail of the machines the equipment, even the animals is fantastic, even inside the vehicles the level of detail to the real counterparts is fantastic, you can even play a radio, on the Pc version there are several radio stations on there not available on the console versions which is a shame.
There are some negatives, like every game, but these are minor, you have to like a simulation game, the ability to take time and use a lot of hours, its not a quick 30-minute pickup and drop like a shooter, you want to invest, but it can be quick relaxing. The other notable negative is the cross-play, games are becoming it, and I have no idea why this game isn’t, it wouldn’t take much at all, also a split-screen version on the console version would have been great, I’ve played both versions and I prefer my PC, but that’s me, the console one is still fine, and I would love to play the console 2 players but hey ho, but trust me its an odd choice but I can see the popularity of this game and they have done really well on this game.
