Review: Farming Simulator 2014 Vita

Farming Simulator 14 invites you into the challenging world of a modern day farmer. Take on all the challenges of farming life, including animal husbandry (cows), crops, sales… it’s up to you to manage and grow your own farm in an open world. As your career progresses, you will have access to a huge selection of farming vehicles and machines, faithfully recreated from the biggest names in the industry.

Farm Simulator 2014 Vita (1)

Pros:

  • Nice detailed graphics. The work gone into the detail on the vehicles in particular is really good.
  • Authentic sound effects with each vehicle having its own unique sound.
  • Controls have all been simplified and stream lined. No need to learn a load of complicated button presses to do simple tasks like in previous games.
  • Save when ever you like form the main menu and the game supports 3 save slots.
  • The game play revolves around you running a farm, By that you tend to the crop like fertilise cut and plant crops. You can buy new tractors/vehicles to expand and every type of crop needs its own special header in order to farm it.
  • You start the game with a few tractors, selection of headers to farm a few types of crop a harvester and a trailer.
  • Three difficulty options. Easy Medium and Hard. Difficulty affects your starting crop stock pile in the silos.Also affected is the market prices for your crop and money is harder to earn.
  • Silos can be used to store your farmed crop. Especially useful as you wait for the market prices to rise and saves your crop going bad out in the wild.
  • Market prices vary and change all the time. If you sell the same crop continuously then you will see the price for that crop drop significantly. The price can be checked from the pause menu at any time so keep an eye on it and by all means sell, But sell smart.
  • Earn cash from selling crops and doing side missions from your neighbors. Side missions randomly pop and offer a refreshing variety of little tasks.
  • Tutorial screens will pop up when you are trying to do something new and at the beginning of the game.
  • Digital manual is available and is actually quite an in depth affair. It gives you an overview of what needs to be done, Where to concentrate your efforts and a few handy little hints.
  • HUD is located at the top and is really good. It will tell you your current vehicles petrol level, load level and your cash amount.
  • A map can be swiped on and comes from the left hand side. Small in size but can be rotated and moved around and contains a legend of locations including your current location. Best thing is you can leave the map open as you continue to play.
  • Can hire workers to do the boring stuff for you or increase productivity. Simply press down on  the d pad and off they go. They will farm the land for you.
  • Buy new vehicles and bits of equipment from the store with your cash. Each piece usually has a brief description of what its for. Anything bought will be delivered to the shop and must be collected.
  • Change vehicles quickly and easy. Simply press left or right on the d pad to cycle through vehicles.
  • Coupling, Or to be clearer connecting to trailers and equipment is now automatic. Just back up to it and you will automatically be connected. Historically this simple action could be a headache on previous games as you had to line everything up perfectly and put in a lot more work than was needed.
  • Camera is on the right stick but the touch screen can be used. Double tap the touch screen to centre the camera back on you.
  • Day/Night cycles and again the game will put your lights on for you straight away.
  • Farming land is easier especially as now you cannot accidently over shoot the crop and ruin your land surrounding it.
  • Harvest many types of crops including hay, milk and usual stuff like corn, wheat.
  • You can expand by buying up land around your town. You can click on the location on the mini map and get the sale price.
  • Stat screen so everything you do in game is recorded.
  • Audio options allow you turn main music and sound effects around.

Farm Simulator 2014 Vita (2)

Cons:

  • The main music in game is annoying and grates after its fifth endless loop.
  • Only the one farm and the area is not that big once you buy up a few pieces of land.
  • HUD while handy is annoying in its placement. It makes simple tasks like looking ahead, a real mission and at night time its just crazy hard.
  • No clear order to things and at the beginning players can feel lost as you struggle to get in the flow. Because of the way in which tutorials pop, You need to take it upon yourself to jump to every vehicle/equipment.
  • AI workers will just stop when full or if an obstacle is in the way. If your field is harvested in patches then the worker will only do straight lines and stop if there is a gap.
  • There is a cost for workers but you never really know the cost.
  • Traffic in the game can only be described as suicidal! Cars will actively swerve at you, cut you up and ram you all over the place.

Farm Simulator 2014 Vita (3)

In Summary, Depending how “Sim” you want your farm depends if you will like this version. I mean it plays well and has a lot of content on offer and is a lot more accessible to new and old players alike. But for all the ease of access a few things are now not in the game. Things like a proper story mode, coupling headaches, new towns and choice of AI workers and even the ability to get out of the vehicle. On the flip side you do manage to get a lot more done as you don’t get bogged down in learning button combinations and rules and regs. So if you want a quick easy to use sim then your in for a treat, But if you like your sim to be more sim than game then this version is not for you. I can take it either way and found it quite refreshing to have the controls simplified but missed the added depth from previous games. Weather changes would of been amazing! Maybe in the next game.

Jim Smale

Gaming since the Atari 2600, I enjoy the weirdness in games counting Densha De Go and RC De Go as my favourite titles of all time. I prefer gaming of old where buying games from a shop was a thing, Being social in person was a thing. Join me as I attempt to adapt to this new digital age!