by Tammyjo Eckhart

Created on: October 24, 2009   Last Updated: October 28, 2009

I just recently started playing FarmVille on Facebook and I have to say it is surprisingly fun. I grew up in a rural area of iowa so I never imagined I'd enjoy playing farming games. A friend on Facebook invited me to play (Lil) Farm Life and I enjoyed that though it has some problems such as making my computer freeze if I try to change my avatar's look and being unable to do anything with the farm animals you collect. All the flaws which (Lil) Farm Life has, FarmVille has fixed though it does have a few problems. This review will compare the two games on Facebook.

In FarmVille a player can plant crops and harvest them, plant trees and harvest them, collect animals and harvest regenerating body parts such as feathers, milk, hair, or fur, and set up buildings as either decorations or useable equipment. Unlike in (Lil) Farm Life, the animals in FarmVille do not move but considering you actually do something with them to earn not just awards but also coins they are more fun to utilize. Whenever harvest something on your farm you acquire coins which you can use to expand the farm's land or buy things for it. Some people have been playing for a very long time and have huge farms with complexes of buildings, decorations and equipment. So far I'm only focused on trees, crops and animals with a small corner for decorations as I win them as awards or get gifts from my friends.

In FarmVille you can request specific items from your list of farming friends when you send them a free item each day. The items change from time to time, ofter reflecting the holiday seasons and improvements or changes to the game. This is one of the areas where FarmVille pales in comparison to (Lil) Farm Life. You can give gifts but they achieve nothing other than hopefully getting you gifts back. In the other game, when a farming friend accepts a gift you earn feet of rainforrest, something the game claims it contributes to conservation of based on what players do. All of the games in the (Lil) system earn these green points. Now in FarmVille you can buy special crops to fight world hunger or other charity matters but you have to buy them with other currency called which you can buy with real money or slowly earn as you level your farm.

FarmVille is very popular but as with most games on these social networking pages, it is as fun and as time consuming as you allow it to be. The great thing is that this game runs on its own, you only need to do anything when your crops are ready to harvest. Unlike the (Lil) Farm Life though, Farm Ville does not send you a notice so you do need to check in every day at least. Just pick longer growing crops and it shouldn't require more than one check in a day. For that ten or more minutes you do check in, you can harvest apples or green beans, milk your goat or shear that sheep, and just relax in this cute, imaginary world.

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