by Elizabeth Picard

Created on: July 30, 2008   Last Updated: August 09, 2008

I was very impressed when I played the trial version of this game. If you've ever played Farm Frenzy, Cake Mania, Diner Dash or similar games, this game is far above those games. Alawar Games has definitely taken a good solid marketable gaming idea and improved on it.

The music was no surprise, actually I believe it's the same from Farm Frenzy or just slightly different if at all. Same with the farm animal sounds. My only critique here is because it's not a Farm Frenzy sequel that a new song should have been put with it. But the song itself at the tempo it's played does keep up with the pace that you need to play the game.

There is very little story line to this game, but with the game entwined help, there's really no need. You can dive right in and play like you've been playing it for months already. It's a bit more fast paced then similar games, but nothing you're not quickly able to keep up with. Actually the game makes it easy for you to keep up with it. Unlike the other games, this one has one new feature which I love and makes the farmer able to multitask as well as you keep up with all the different tasks such as selling your goods, keeping your farm animals fed, your crops taken care of and taking in new contracts as well as run to the market to sell your goods. It allows you to continually click on tasks and overlap them. Other games had limits on just how many additional steps you could line up for your character to do before you could add more or it would stop the tasks that you had them set up to do. This game, from what I could tell will let you set up as many tasks in the order you click them for as many clicks you can stay ahead of your character.

This feature alone makes this game head over heels ahead of other games. Because you can get your farmer taking care of the crops, listen for the farm animals to make their sounds to know they need more food to make more of their products and run to the market to sell more goods. From time to time come back and check on him to see how the crops are progressing. Because it is a bit more fast paced, once you get the knack of the game, this can give you a bit of time to rest and breathe before diving in again.

Of course you can purchase farm animals which will turn your harvest into a variety of products, such as grass for your cow will make milk for you to sell or tomatoes to your pig will make ham. What I do like is that when you have your animals make their products, the game knows just how many you have of the needed feed in order for them to make their product. There's no guessing or having to check before you make a produced good.

I have to admit that I am already a fan of Alawar Games and own several of them myself, but this one impressed me. It's a solid package with the same upgrades style of the others, but there's so much diversity, I can't see anyone becoming bored anytime too soon. I would definitely recommend this game as one of their best available on the market today. Overall I would rate this game as a 4 1/2 out of 5. Only because I was disappointed that a new soundtrack wasn't added to the game, especially when this game is far better than Farm Frenzy. I think it you're going to sell a completely new product, especially one that has improvements from it's predecessors, then you need to make it a completely new package all around.

Learn more about this author, Elizabeth Picard.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.