Farming Simulator 18 review - A well-thought out mobile port of a hardcore simulator
|
| Farming Simulator 18

There's a certain subset of people who, upon seeing the words Farming Simulator, will likely roll their eyes and move on with their lives without a second thought.

And while that's a perfectly acceptable way to live your life, to disregard Farming Simulator 18 so quickly would be foolhardy, as it's one of the best simulators out there.

That isn't to say it's particularly good – it is still a mediocre game by any standard – but it's the best at what it does.

Get off my land

Farming Simulator 18 sees you running a farm, as you might imagine, largely through operating a range of large vehicles and heavy machinery to grow and tend to your crops.

There's plenty to grow and harvest, each with its own uses and sale values – hay can be used to feed cattle for instance, while wheat is pretty much just for selling.

Farming Simulator 18

You need to cultivate the land, sow the seeds, wait for your crops to grow, and then harvest the lot before selling it on to one of the businesses around town.

The actual act of this is slow and repetitive, as the game wants to give you the true experience of farming your crops, so you'll have to crawl around in your vehicles to get crops ready and wait in-game days for them to grow.

But the actual mechanics of this are incredibly easy to pick up, allowing you to get on with the task at hand with minimal faffing around.

I've got a combine harvester

Buttons on the screen are enormous, so you'll very rarely slip your thumb when steering and spin the camera round, and resetting the view is a simple as a quick tap on the screen.

You don't need to worry too much about coupling your tools either, as all you need to do is reverse into anything you want to attach at a certain angle and it will automatically latch on.

Even delivering your goods is easy – you just drive up to a grate in the ground outside a business and dump your goods in for instant cash.

Farming Simulator 18

What Farming Simulator 18 does lack is a useful tutorial. You're given a very quick run through what you're supposed to do when you boot up, but most of the buttons you'll just have to work out yourself.

And graphically it's not up to much, with bland environments and simple textures all over the world, even on the highest graphics setting.

Red sky at night

But there's something so charming about Farming Simulator 18 that you'll feel compelled to keep going, even if the gameplay is a slog.

It's a very well thought out mobile adaptation of a typically hardcore, difficult to play experience, with big buttons and simple mechanics so anyone can play.

And yes it can be boring, and yes it's very slow, but if you want to zen out for a while with some big ol' farming equipment, this is the game to do it with.

Farming Simulator 18 review - A well-thought out mobile port of a hardcore simulator

It's definitely not for everyone, but Farming Simulator 18 is the absolute best example of a simulator on mobile
Score
Ric Cowley
Ric Cowley
Ric was somehow the Editor of Pocket Gamer, having started out as an intern in 2015. He hopes to take over the world the same way.