Farming Simulator. Good chances are that anyone seeing that phrase on Giant Bomb is reminded of those old Quick Looks, the first of which is going to be a decade old this December. I feel old too. Perhaps because my introduction to the franchise was watching Ryan and Vinny horsing around, Farming Simulator is something that has long confounded me. Not so much that it exists, but that it exists as a basically yearly franchise. I get it as a singular thing, I quite like the idea of video games as simulations of very boring real life things, and Farming Simulator was one of the first "higher profile" of the "Blank Simulator" games, or at least one of the first I was aware of.

It's the part where this is something that they keep releasing new games of, and people keep buying them (to the tune of 25 million sales across the series) that surprises me.

Anyway, thanks to my yearly subscription to PlayStation Plus, I was finally able to play a Farming Simulator game. Farming Simulator 19, released in 2018, naturally. Apparently Farming Simulator 20 has only released on phones and Switch, as the series seems to be on a schedule of PC/bigh consoles one year, and mobile/Vita or Switch the other. The point of that being that for the platform I own (PS4), this is the most recently released farming simulation, at least in this franchise, the Call of Duty of farming.

So, my friend Tom and I decided to give the game a go. But not just load up the game, goof around, and laugh at it. We wanted to make a serious attempt at learning how to farm in a simulation. Okay, we definitely also wanted to goof around, but first and foremost we wanted to give this game an honest, earnest shot. And, over the course of three days, we did just that.

Mostly.

So here, is what happened in our weekend of Farming Simulator.

Day 1:

Farm name: Funky Barn.

We decided that since ancient humans didn't have tutorials on how to farm tens of thousands of years ago, that if they could farm without modern technology, we could farm without tutorials. Meaning we went straight into the multiplayer mode, no in game tutorials, and initially, no looking anything up online.

The first step was figuring out how to make a custom game. Not that difficult, but one annoyance is that every player has to have downloaded any DLC being used. There were a couple free DLCs (one of which being a PlayStation exclusive free tractor), but Tom, on all three of our farming days, had not downloaded either. We didn't realize this was a requirement until I had already started a game, so that one had to be abandoned and we had to restart, this time with the DLC turned off.

The game allows for up to six farmers (and it has a character creator, but most of the options for customization are just dozens of branded hats) per instance, and it even has a setting to only allow friends in, or to lock the farm behind a specific password. It was just the two of us, as we were unable to convince our friend Jay to take herself away from Fallout 76 long enough to farm. I will say before I go any further that she got Tom and I to try 76 during its free weekend, but I had more fun simulating farming, so keep that in mind as I detail the rest of this.

However, it still starts you with no land, or equipment owned. So our next step was to figure out how to acquire both of those things. This was a bit confusing. There's an in game store, accessible both in a physical location on the map, and through a menu accessible anywhere. That'll let you buy just about everything...except the land. Since we didn't realize initially that the store can be accessed anywhere via menu, we thought there had to be some physical location to buy property from, but no. After some doing, we figured out first that a farm has to be created in game (I guess you could create multiple different ones in the same instance and compete with your friends?), and then land can be purchased via the map. Also it's possible that you need to create the farm before buying equipment, I don't remember the exact order we did everything.

So, we bought some land that was already growing some stuff (notably sunflowers), and some equipment that we thought would be useful. A tractor, some sort of harvester, and a trailer. Plus a forklift, for fun. The next problem, however, was getting this equipment to the land that we bought. Some of it was quite wide. Often wider than the space between the trees on the narrow, winding roads to the farm. But, some off road shenanigans later, we we were back at the farm.

Except it wasn't really a farm if it was just a few plots of crops, so I went and bought some things to make it feel more like a home. Like a home. It came completely furnished, with all the necessities. On office water cooler, TV brand TV, Micro brand microwave, two full sized surfboards, one mini surfboard, and a framed black and white picture of a (modern) tractor on the wall.

Then I bought a doghouse, which came complete with a dog. We named him Bowser. He was a good dog, that would just eat infinitely, and roll onto his back when pet. Sadly, there's no petting animation for the farmer, but I will say the third person running animations for your fellow farmers are fantastic (very funny). The dog also came with some balls that can be thrown, but Bowser didn't seem that interested in fetching.

Of course, I also bought a shed, and some sandcastles to really make the farm feel like home.

At this point, after buying all that equipment, the land, and the house, we were almost out of money, so it was time to figure out how to farm. This is where I think Farming Simulator's only ambition comes to bite itself in the rear, and end up hurting the experience. One of the selling points for Farming Simulator 19 is, "over 300 authentic vehicles and machines." But I look at this the same way I look at games like the Forza series and their hundreds and hundreds of exquisitely detailed real world cars, which is that at some point, it's just too much. Except in Forza it's less of an issue because really, they're all just cars. I assume you can do just fine in any car of a specific class, assuming it's being raced against similar machines, because that's how racing competitions usually work.

That isn't the case when you're talking about specific machines built for specific purposes, and in some cases equipment that can only be attached to other specific machines. Especially when the game isn't as immediately clear about that as it could be, which can lead to things like buying something that won't work with what you've already got.

Anyway, after a lot of bumbling around, eventually we figured out how to harvest the sunflowers already growing on our land. The next problem was getting them out of the harvester, and into a trailer. We assumed for a long while that this required pushing some sort of button, but it turns out that you just need to line up the trailer right, and it'll go automatically. I was just bad at the lining up part. But we got the sunflowers into the trailer, just in time for Jay to tell us to try Fallout 76.

Thus ended the first of Three Days of Simulated Farming.

Day 2.

Farm name: Funky Barn Too.

We learned a lot during our first day of farming, but in our bumbling, I thought that maybe we could learn from our mistakes the day before, and get further with a fresh start. So, Tom and I agreed to start anew, with a new farm, on Felsbrunn this time, and importantly, with the money reset to that starting 1.25 million. Surely with our newfound knowledge, and expertise, it would go a lot faster, and smoother, right?

Well, the first thing we noticed is that Felsbrunn is a lot easier to get around, as there aren't as many roads with lots of trees on both sides. That, and the starting position was closer to the shop, which was handy as everything bought materializes there, even if it was bought in the menu elsewhere.

This time, instead of just buying some random land, we decided to scope it out first, and make sure we bought the correct equipment for whatever we were going to harvest. So, we did all that (while also buying a new farmhouse (no surfboards this time), doghouse (this time the dog was named Doug)), and a chicken coop, as animals are a vital part of the farming process.

I assumed that since the doghouse came with a dog, the chicken coop would come with chickens. Not so. Thus, the next step was figuring out how to buy chickens. We did so, and we had a little penned in area around the coop just brimming with chickens. Now, chickens are living organisms, and like all organisms they need sustenance, which meant buying chicken feed (though apparently they don't need water). Figuring out what they ate (apparently just wheat, meaning that though we were growing wheat we had to go buy some), and how to buy it wasn't too tricky.

Getting it from the store to the farm, however, was. Chicken feed only comes in big bags attached to a pallet, and my initial thought was to load it into the back of my pickup truck. It would definitely fit, and though the bag was big, it wasn't so big that a couple people couldn't heave it up onto a truck. No dice, however. So, I did the next best thing, and used the truck to physically push the bag from the store back to the farm.

Upon reaching the farm, I realized the bag was atop a pallet, which would have been perfect for a forklift. So, since the feed seems to have to be lifted into the air and poured out for the chickens to eat, I bought a forklift (remember, this is a second farm and we didn't have that first one anymore), and fed the chickens.

We did not play on this farm long enough to get any eggs, as the next thing we did was focus on the crop farming. And through the help of some internet searches, we eventually managed to harvest a whole field of wheat, and I drove it off to the grain mill to sell for what I hoped would be a great bounty.

All told, we spent 1.2 million and ended up with 15 thousand dollars made back.

After this demoralizing reminder of the hell that is capitalism, we decided to explore the area of Felsbrunn. We drove up a long road to some castle ruins (very long for Tom in the slow forklift), careened down a mountain into the town, stood on top of some statues, and drove various equipment into the water.

Needless to say, our defeat at the hands of capitalism left us quite distraught, but not yet ready to give up, even if this was the end of the second day of Simulated Farming.

Day 3.

Farm name: 2 Funky 2 Barn.

The third, and as of this writing, final attempt to Simulate Farming. This time, we went in with a concrete goal, and a vital tip to help maximize our money situation.

The Goal:

Plant, grow, and harvest a crop from scratch. So far we had just harvested crops that were already planted, and ready to go. That, and the whole chicken thing, but this time, we wanted to really grow something, and go through that whole process.

The Vital Tip:

Lease equipment, instead of buying. Buying large equipment that costs hundreds of thousand of Dollars/Euros/Pounds is, in retrospect, not the smartest idea. Leasing, however, meant that we could get access to far more equipment, for less money.

Our plan, then, was to find a suitable field, and grow potatoes. After some searching online, Tom assured me that potatoes are profitable, and I went along with it, because who doesn't like potatoes? With this goal in mind, and some good farming music in our ears, we started our farming mission.

We bought the land, and leased several pieces of large potato technology. We acquired the seeds (a process that was more confusing than it should be because the game just sells generic seeds that become whatever you want based on something that I don't remember), plowed the field in a very logical/efficient manner (well, maybe not), and planted the seeds.

Since Farming Simulator 19 doesn't concern itself with watering crops, all we had to do was wait for the potatoes to grow, right? Not so much, as we were struck with the bane of all farmers...

WEEDS.

So, we looked up how to deal with our field that now looked like more weed than potato. Two options presented themselves: Herbicides, and equipment that would cut up the weeds while not affecting the crops (somehow). We decided herbicides are probably bad for the environment, so we went with the other option. Simple, right?

Several problems occurred.

First, for some unknown reason, despite my tractor with its giant, cool looking double wheels already being very large and heavy, apparently the weed cutter on the back of the tractor requires a weight equipped to the front of the tractor. Which was fine, I thought ahead and had already equipped the tractor with a thing on the front for connecting things. With the front weight equipped, surely now we could just cut down the weeds, right?

As I drove onto the field, I was rather distraught that not only were the weeds unaffected by the cutters, but I was destroying the potatoes. It turns out that my massive(ly cool looking) tires were wrecking the crops. Apparently vehicles need narrow tires to not do that, the logic being that they can more deftly drive between rows of plants. I assume the reality (in this simulation) is those ones just arbitrarily don't wreck the crops.

Our solution to this was to go into the menu and turn off friendly fire with crops, as I didn't want to give up my cool tires.

Still, this didn't solve the weed problem, as they were impervious to the cutters. Some research online later, and apparently the cutters don't work on fully grown weeds. Only herbicides do. Back to the store we went, and soon we were spraying that stuff all over the field, and causing untold havoc on the local ecosystem. Probably.

I should note, weeds can also be turned off in the menu, but at this point I wanted to kill those darn things!! And indeed they were, finally.

The weeds taken care of, soon the potatoes were grown, and ready to be harvested. So, Tom and I deployed the potato technology we acquired at the start of all this, and though some trailer related shenanigans ensued again, we eventually had our harvest loaded up, and we drove it off to the spot that Tom read would buy potatoes for the best price.

All this research, all this convoluted work, leasing things and having to lease different things later, learning how weeds and friendly fire work, trying to farm around the one raised spot from Tom's terraforming where he put a garage behind the field instead of where we actually parked the equipment, the five hundred grand we spent on this endeavor (plus another house, and a dog, this time named Cereal (I didn't tell Tom this but I didn't really agree with his naming choice this time)), it netted us...

Five thousand.

A third of what we got for the wheat.

So, I drove my pickup down a river and we called it quits.

Here are my thoughts on Farming Simulator 19: It is not a great game. I think it often focuses on the wrong things in too much detail (way too many different machines), while trying to make some things simple in a way that ends up being counter-intuitive. Like how you just buy generic seeds, instead of buying the specific type.

The game feels lifeless, and sterile. The only things resembling personality here are the radio stations (full of what I can only assume is music from a royalty free music library) and the dog rolling around. Maybe the surfboards. It doesn't feel well suited to a controller, both in how some things are mapped, but also the feel in the sticks just doesn't feel tuned well. I had to turn the camera up to 300% to not feel like I was turning in cold molasses, yet there's almost no dead zone for the stick, meaning my controller's drift problem (which is infuriating since I only bought it last October) was happening often enough that I kept thinking I should switch to my older controller that might not drift, but the battery is so worn out it needs to charge after only an hour or two of playing.

I don't know what it would take to make this a game I would enjoy outside of the context of these three sessions with my friend. More story (which I guess the single player might have, but I doubt it)? Better controls? Any personality at all?

What gets me about all this isn't that there are people who enjoy this game. I know I like games with things that some people think are tedious, like Death Stranding, for example. What gets me is that they keep putting new versions of this game out, and people keep buying them. At some point it almost feels like a scam. Here's the same game, but this year you get pigs!

I dunno.

It's not for me.

But at least Tom and I had some fun with it.

Thank you for reading.