by Renna Madison

Created on: June 13, 2008   Last Updated: June 23, 2008

Help the Smith family save Uncle Bill's farm in this latest release of time management simulation games. This rural spin-off of the popular Diner Dash series of games will keep you busy with such tasks as feeding and watering animals, collecting food products, and weeding the vegetable garden. Keep the animals happy and the garden healthy, and you'll produce more food to sell. If you're lucky, you'll get a phone call from Flo at the diner offering to pay higher prices for the organic food that your farm is producing.

There are two options of game play Story Mode and Endless Game. In each mode, the game gets a little tougher as time passes with more tasks to perform and new animals to keep happy. Both modes include four different farms, each one more complex than the last. In Story Mode, you unlock the higher level farms by completing the goals of the lower level ones. Once a farm becomes unlocked in Story Mode, it will also be available for Endless Game play. The Endless Game option also allows you to choose from among three levels of difficulty. Additionally, the Story Mode offers interesting mini-game diversions every couple of levels that provide a nice change in pace.

If you are familiar with time management simulation games, you will be able to pick up on how to play this game in seconds. Even if you are new to the genre, there is an excellent tutorial that allows you to learn as you play so you can jump right into the game without having to read a lot of help files first. That's always a plus in my book.

The background music for the game is a chirpy, farm theme that puts you in the farming spirit. It has a very upbeat tempo and complements the pace of the game nicely. The graphics are not outstanding, but they are definitely amusing and easy on the eye. There are numerous sound cues as well as video ones to let you know what tasks need performing next.

I'll confess that I have a secret love for this genre of games. They're not a great challenge to the mind, but they do offer hours of fun, addictive play as you continually try to progress in order to see what new task or level that you can unlock next. This particular adaptation seems to offer more that most in that regard, even more than its Diner Dash predecessor. I played the entire 60 minutes of the trial version and was caught by surprise when the time was up. If, like me, you're a fan of this type of game, it's definitely worth trying out.

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