REVIEW – I have no creative idea for the first paragraph, so I’m just going to say it drier than the Sahara desert that Techland (Dying Light) published Pure Farming 2018, and it allows us to have some farming antics on consoles. This genre is obscure, but it can create profit here and there, especially in Germany. (They like simulators…)

The game is a farming simulator. Yes. Now that the Idon’tknowandIabsolutelyDON’Tcarehowmany readers’ bigger percentage has clicked on the X, now I can say that Ice Flames‘ game does its job right, as it is capable of pondering to that niche, obscure audience that does exist out there.

Story

The game offers you a plot to play through, and it gives me a bit of a headache (as I cannot judge it by its story – it’s just a plus here, making me question what the fifth rating factor is going to be…): you can customize your character, which is a positive, and after a family member passing away, you take over the farm with all its debts, and your goal will be to make profit from it. Thankfully, I can also say that Pure Farming 2018 offers a bit of tutorial, too: it’s not going to immediately toss you into the middle of the farm, telling you to do something. Respectable: during the first missions, the game is going to highlight you the required vehicles and points of interest on the map. The way the tutorial was made isn’t the best, though.

Free Farming, as it’s written on the tin, offers you total freedom: you can do whatever you want on the farm, and you also can have as much money at the start as you want. The third mode, Farming Challenges, will give you all the land and vehicles, and you’ll have to get enough crop and food on the table to end positively. You can also control multiple farms at the same, too. Sometimes, you just need more than one.

Vehicles

From planting seeds to harvesting, a lot of realistically modeled vehicles are ready to be controlled, and most of them offer different controlling methods (that’s it, I’m giving controls the fifth rating number… I’m putting this together as we speak!), and you can feel that the developers tried their best to show how serious they are. Dirt, mud, windshield wipers – your cleanliness is quickly going to disappear, especially if it starts to rain out there.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Pure Farming 2018 would be easy to get used to, or easy to like. The opposite happens: you need time, and you’re likely going to not get into the game. You have to learn the necessary basics, where the tutorial just gives you the first step of a long road. The tutorial itself is a little complicated: you will find yourself going to the tablet several times because you might just have forgotten something.

Farming at day and night

Changing time of the day? Several countries, such as America, Germany, Italy, or Japan? A wide variety of farming instruments, tools, and vehicles? All are present. Visually, the game also looks nice, and I believe Pure Farming 2018 sounds good, too. The game hands you a relaxed, hugely laid back experience, but the game itself is NOT going to become a widely known mainstream title.

It’s not an AAA game, and I cannot rate it as such. Pure Farming 2018 is a 7 out of 10: it’s good, but it will not be memorable after a few years. If you want to be a farmer but only have a console, I can recommend you this game. However, for everyone else, I can’t. There is a reason why I couldn’t talk much about it: it’s an obscure genre, and while it’s good and somewhat easy to control, it is not going to light the sales charts on fire. Pure Farming 2018 is an okay game from Ice Flames, and thus, it deserves to be called a good title. If it had had fast travel, I’d have appreciated it. Oh well, it’s still a good purchase for those who crave for farming simulators.

-V-

Publisher: Techland Publishing

Developer: Ice Flames

Genre: farming simulator

Release date: March 13, 2018