Employees Picks
Along with our fundamental Game of the Year Awards 2021, every member of the PC Gamer workforce is shining a highlight on a sport they cherished this 12 months. We’ll put up new workers picks, alongside our fundamental awards, all through the remainder of the month.
I have been curious concerning the Farming Simulator sequence for ages, however I at all times pulled up in need of really taking part in as a result of it simply appeared so darn difficult. My thought of farming in video games is clicking on some filth whereas holding a seed, then coming again in a couple of hours and discovering a totally grown ear of corn I can seize and stuff instantly into my mouth. At most I will possibly add some animal poop for fertilizer and dump a can of water over it every now and then. I think about that Skilled Mode.
However I lastly jumped into Farming Simulator 22 with each ft, and I can report that—nicely, yeah, it is so darn difficult. I spent most of my first a number of hours alt-tabbing out each couple of minutes to scour a wiki or watch a video that might inform me do fundamental shit like minimize grass or feed a cow.
That is as a result of, truthfully, farming is advanced as hell and slicing grass or feeding a cow is a multi-step course of requiring a bunch of various equipment that normally must be related and pulled by one other piece of equipment. And it is not like these machines are known as GrassMaster X1 or Cow-Feeder 9000. Clicking and scrolling by way of menus whereas peering at hulking lots of shiny metallic and spinning blades with names like Claas Jaguar 960 Terra Trac or Case IH Autostoft 8800 Multi-Row, it is onerous to know the place to search for what you want even when what you want. There is a fairly intensive in-game assist menu that lays out the broad strokes of do a farming factor (which can then allow you to do one other factor, then one other factor, and ultimately the factor you really wish to do), however little or no of it’s intuitive for a newbie.
However, dang. Lastly discovering do a little bit of farming, after which correctly doing it, is extremely satisfying, even when (or particularly as a result of) it could actually take months of in-game time. Making a discipline, plowing it, seeding it, watching the crop develop, harvesting it, amassing it, and promoting it or utilizing it to create merchandise is sort of a rush. Even one thing as simple-sounding as delivering grain and dumping it off at a flour mill is sort of thrilling as a result of not a single step of it was really easy.
And the machines, as coldly named as they’re, are wonderful to see in motion. Like I mentioned once I began taking part in, the assorted sorts of tools in Farming Simulator 22 are as cool as sci-fi spaceships. Watching a harvester fill because it chews its method throughout a discipline, seeing a baler spit out a wonderful cylinder of hay, or utilizing a tree-felling machine slice a trunk into excellent logs is simply plain enjoyable. Harvesting a discipline of beets sounds mundane, and it’s mundane, however it’s additionally fairly spectacular, particularly when you spent tens of hundreds of {dollars} on leased equipment to plant these beets months in the past.
Regardless of the complexity, Farming Simulator 22 nonetheless is, in a method, pleasant to newcomers. It is daunting to contemplate all of the various things you’ll be able to farm—cotton, wheat, corn, potatoes, sorghum, grapes, olives, sunflowers, and extra, plus livestock like cows, chickens, and even bees—however you needn’t chew off greater than you’ll be able to chew. I began with a tiny little plot of land and simply targeted on studying develop a single crop, and whereas I did it fairly poorly whereas spending a small fortune, I nonetheless did it and felt like a rattling farmer once I was accomplished. Novices may toggle off sure settings like seasonal crops, crop withering, weeds, and extra to ease into the sim as a substitute of making an attempt to sort out it unexpectedly.
As Luke identified in our review, the sequence might stand a bit extra character, and even just a bit bit of favor, on the subject of among the surroundings and the character fashions. It is a good wanting sport, however not precisely drenched with fashion. And the AI might use slightly extra brainpower—I have been run off the street by horrible AI drivers greater than as soon as, and the computer-controlled staff you’ll be able to rent typically exhibit horrible judgement (or no judgement) whereas driving autos or tools round.
Regardless of 20 hours of play I nonetheless really feel like an absolute newbie. I nonetheless often must alt-tab out to learn a fast information or watch a video on do the factor I wish to do. However I’ve barely even scraped the floor of all of the totally different crops and farm and revenue from them, which makes me wish to be taught. If the subsequent discipline I plant is as satisfying as my first few, I feel I will be farming for fairly some time.
