PURE FARMING 2018 Review for PlayStation 4 with Germany DLC

PURE FARMING 2018, by Technland and Iceflames, is about as real as a simulation game gets. That being said, to enjoy this game you have to be a die-hard sim fan of farming, as this will have little appeal to the casual gamer or first-time simulation player. PURE FARMING 2018 puts forth a great amount of detail both in its scenery and gameplay. The landscapes are very detailed, from the way the wind rustles through the trees to the tire marks left on the ground beneath you. 

The controls are the biggest gripe for me; everything is very clunky. The vehicle controls are really what slows the game down. Backing up your tractor to attach any type of equipment (sprayer, trailer, combine…etc.) is exhausting. It is not unreasonable to expect to be able to move forward and backward in a straight line, but trying to do so in this game will take you back to preparing for your own driving test, except with less accuracy. Plowing, seeding, and harvesting take far too much time because the clumsiness of the controls do not allot for smooth and efficient rotation of the vehicles. Driving the combine down one row in a linear direction feels like quite the triumph, but the dread comes when you try to turn the vehicle around to go back down the next row without doing a zig-zag across the whole field.

There is a lot of driving in this game and does take up a great deal of time navigating from point a to point b. The one merit here is that the map allows you to teleport to certain locations, providing you own the piece of property you are trying to reach—although it will take you many hours of gameplay to purchase enough property to make this much of a feat.

 If you are new to the realm of farming simulations, or simply like a little bit of structure in an open-ended format, campaign mode will really appeal. The campaign is the best way to start out on your PURE FARMING 2018 experience because the tutorials not only give you a preliminary foundation for a successful farming strategy, but will also provide for a quicker sense of satisfaction in an otherwise slow-paced experience. 

Really the only thing that kept me interested for as long as it did was the opportunity to cultivate farms on different continents. The game comes with four farming locations; Montana, Colombia, Italy, and Japan. The first DLC to be released includes a Germany map. The merit of having this geographic variety is that the offered crops and livestock for each map hold real-world cultural significance. For example, coffee is a farming staple on the Colombia map, grain is a huge commodity in Montana, Italy is big on grapes and olives, cherries and rice for Japan, and Germany is all about the rapeseed and sheep. 

If you haven’t always longed to be a farmer, this will not keep you entertained for long. You may remain amused if you have an incredible amount of patience, but still the gratification is minimal. I cannot recommend this game.

Check Out the Pure Farming 2018 PlayStation 4 Launch Trailer:

Pure Farming 2018 is available for PC and leading current-gen consoles.