User Reviews (1 - 11 of 28)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

I am a farmer

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 38 / 42
Date: September 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I live on a large dairy farm my self and I am a teenager. We have 1500 cows and 900 of them are milked 3 times a day. I deal with every day chores such as feeding the calves, and mostly field work.

For those of you who were wondering the equipment does really cost that much in real life. In fact we happen to own some of the equipment in the game. This game is very realistic. I havnt found any bugs on my computer and ive played it alot. People when on auto will not use equipment because it is a decision making process. The help guide says they wont use equipment on auto.

This game really simulates a farm well. You have to have accuarate timing when planting, spraying, cultivating, and tilling the land. We have 900 acers of corn and 800 acers of hay. It generally takes 2 weeks to harvest each. Our hay is so good we can get 4 harvests of hay a year.

One thing I dont like about the game is you cant get stuck!! haha in real life you get stuck in the mud every so often especially when harvesting corn. I think improvements to the game should be getting stuck is working the field with high water content.

I think that the game is very good and I love it. Haha but real farming isnt as fun so enjoy it! I would recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a fun challenge.

Some flaws, but a classic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 22
Date: August 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'm not a farmer by profession, though possibly one day owning a farm has always interested me. When I first saw this title I was a bit skeptical that a 'farming' game could actually work as entertainment, but all in all John Deere: American Farmer does a fine job of providing an enjoyable and interesting simulation of farming.

So what do you get? Well you get some prepackaged scenario's dealing with goals ranging from having to harvest nearly 2,000 acres in one year to situations where you must turn around a farm heavily in debt. You get a free build mode and also a map editor and scenario maker. All the scenario's are fun and interesting to get to grips with.

You begin to learn what kinds of crops grow best in which type of soil and moisture level, you can also choose the type of seed that you use, do you go for the budget brand or do you go for the genetically modified varieties manufactured by Pioneer. Its always a balance between the cost of planting and the associated cost of crop dusting with pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that determine ultimately your profit margin. The same applies for animal husbandry, you can raise hogs, beef cattle or create a dairy, whichever you choose you must monitor the market price levels and try to buy cheap and sell during high price spikes. Concerning the crops you can store your harvests in silage for the time when you can sell at the highest possible price. This sounds easy, but in practice it isn't; frequently to expand the farm you must borrow money to buy land and equipment and hire more staff, which means that sometimes you have to sell your produce for lower prices to maintain your commitments. Thus any expansion you do must be carefully planned out so that you can get out of debt.

The vehicles available are all John Deere, and whilst I don't mind that, one of the problems is that you cannot buy used vehicles or even rent them. Considering a new heavy duty tractor is in excess of $200,000 this makes expansion of farms of this size much more problematic where new equipment is rarely purchased. I feel the game should have given more choice in this regard. The other element which is lacking concerning the vehicles and the economic model in the game is that you can run a combine for 30 years and it never costs you anything in maintanence. Likewise one aspect of farming is the cost of diesel, in the game you never pay these costs, which in reality alternate with the market. It would have been interesting had the developers added this feature.

As was said earlier your family memebers can come and live with you on the farm and work for free. It is possible to keep them on the farm indefinately provided that you can rotate their jobs and give them rest breaks and good living conditions with some leisure structures. Usually a mix of 75% family and 25% hired employees can run a farm remarkably well.

The graphics are quite good and are from a 'birds eye' perspective of the farm, the crops are illustrated ripening, the livestock gets bigger as time goes on, you seen the rain and darkness on cloudy days and brightness on sunny ones as well as twisters and thunder and lightning. The weather is also well modelled and shows how much the farmer is truly reliant on good weather for high yields, the game models droughts which can vary in length, and this of course can ruin all your crops.

My final critical note is that the characters in the game could have been made more interesting. The game models them all as kind of dumb hillbilly sterotypes from the southern states. Considering the game is set in three geographic locations (The Lake States, The Great Plains and the Corn Belt) this is a bit stupid and gets boring.

Bottom line is this is great game, which is highly original. Clearly if you only like action packed games it may not be for you, but if you like strategy, including war games then this is for you. I hope they make a sequel

Wonderful Learning Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: October 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I bought this for two of my grandchildren. Ages 8 & 10. They LOVE this game! The more you play it, the more new things you find to do. They get quite the feeling of accomplishment from playing this game. There are many different things to keep up with, like the seasons and insects and when to feed the cows and work on the barn and what to plant to make the most money. You can buy equipment and houses too. But beware, it is vERY addicting, even for older teenagers and adults. This game gets an A+. Buy it!

This and farm supports!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 17
Date: December 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game for my cousin, so he can get a job. His dad is a composer and makes quite a bit of money, and I don't want my cousin to suffer by being something low paying, like a teacher. So, knowing that the average farm family makes lots of money, I bought him this for an education. Now, he can play this and learn the ends and outs of farming. The other thing that will help is going to be, or course, government price supports and crop insurance. So with this game and government programs, I expect my cousin to exceed and do well and soon he'll be making more food than he can sell, and getting paid for it all!!!!

Caught the kids attention as well as mine

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I love this game. My only problem is getting it away from the kids so I can play it. My 12 year old as well as teenager and older kids all love it. I was trying to find something that would entice them away from the shoot-em up games and this did it.

Yes, it has it frustrating moments as a player (when lots of things need to be done at once), but that is what sim games do for you. We have had NO problem with crashing. It may have to do with meeting the sytem requirements listed.

Great fun and a lot of learning. I'm sure a real farmer might not like it, but this IS a computer game, not real life. I know when we finish all the scenarios in this box, we'll get the next edition as well.

It has made us much more aware of agricultural issues (weather, crop prices, government farm prices) in the news and we comment on those stories to each other. This never happened before.

Great game! I had gotten tired of building Sim-cities and SimFarm was way too hard (picking up fence pieces and perfecting matching them together lest the horse gets out was stupid; chasing that tiny pixel size horse over the county was even worse). John Deere farms reign!

Famers and Video Games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: June 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is pretty good. Cept, im a farmer myself - i dont have "seasons" to work - unlike the game displays. Also, you cant rent land on the game. but other than those flaws. its a pretty good deal. and in refference to the Teacher/Farmer comparison review - Teachers make way more than a farmer. I would tell anyone they're better off at making themselves a Teacher than a farmer. I dont know anyone who took up being a farmer for the money - most take it up as a desire and a way of life. Not for the money.

A Farmer's life is neither glorious nor easy....

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 31 / 35
Date: July 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

...and this game demonstrates that very well. More often than not, if you ask city-folk where their milk, meat, and produce come from the answer you'll hear is 'The store.' An answer that is far from the truth!

This game provides an interesting look at farming life, the costs and work involved, and provides an opportiunity to see what goes on before our food hits the grocery store shelves. You can choose to play one of a number of scenarios (pre-designed farms with set goals) or choose 'free play' and design your own farm (the only goal being to operate a profit-making farm). You can grow grain crops (corn, wheat, soybeans, or sunflowers) or raise livestock (beef cattle, dairy cattle, or hogs). You can add buildings, purchase more land to expand your farm, and run a roadside vegetable/flower stand. Once you've got the money coming in, you can add leisure items - such as a barbeque, swiming pool, or trampoline - or such luxury items as a 100' statue of Paul Bunion or a solid gold tractor! Watch out, though, as there are many things that can go wrong: your animals can get sick, your crops could be invaded by pests, or everything could get blown away by a passing twister! And, there's always those pesky relatives who drop in unexpectedly when their lives get bad and they need a place to stay for a while.

I'll be the first to admit that it's not an action-packed adventure (like so many other games on the market), but I believe that's because this game is based on a reality that - let's face it - can be quite monotonous.

I think this game is best suited for kids, however adults (like my dad, who's a 'frustrated city farmer') should enjoy it too. It's educational without going into great detail (i.e. it doesn't address what happens after you sell those animials that are fattened up for market), but there's enough realism to keep it from being too 'sugar coated.'

enjoyable despite bugs

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: January 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I am not an avid game player at all. Despite (or perhaps due to) working on computers for most of my professional life I have probably only bought five computer games in the past ten years. But I saw this advertised before Christmas and mentioned it to my wife, who purchased it for me as a Christmas gift.

I grew up on a small farm and have a B.S. degree in Agri-business Economics. But like many others, the need to make a decent living took me away from agriculture. This game is a great way for someone like me to release that pent-up desire to be "back on the farm."

As others have stated this game could be great. I also believe it is screaming for a mod or expansion pack. Here are some of the issues:

You cannot have more than one tractor working in a field at a time. Why can't I have one worker plowing, and a second one following him with a planter? Real life farmers do this all the time.

Only one person can enter the Gator or pickup truck. It should be possible to use the Gator to transport two workers to wherever on the farm they are needed. The pickup should hold three people.

Workers often get stuck. This seems to happen almost every time with the utility tractor cleaning barns. It is usually faster to just have workers clean the barns by hand, because the driver will drive the small tractor half way across the county to clean the barn, and then often end up getting stuck with it. The only way to unstick him is to sell the tractor and fire the worker (except you cannot fire him if he happens to be a family member).
Sometimes a family member will get stuck feeding the animals. All you can do is sell the animals, and keep the fence empty. If you buy new animals, they will starve. This is because you cannot send someone else to feed the animals while another worker is supposedly feeding them (but the first person who is stuck will never get around to actually feeding them). I downloaded the patch, but it would not install. I received an error message saying I had the wrong version of the program.

Another complaint I have is the machinery available. It is a John Deere game, so I have no problem with that being the only brand available. But one of the scenarios has a goal of farming over 2000 acres...and the largest corn planter you can buy is 12 rows? John Deere sells 16 and 24 row planters. The amount of tillable land can vary from 200 acres to well over 2000 acres, yet we can only buy one size of combine. John Deere sells at least four sizes of combines. Similarly, I would expect to be able to buy different size grain platforms and corn heads. I can buy a no-till drill, so why can't I buy a no-till planter? John Deere sells them.

This game is indeed screaming for a mod or add-on pack to address these issues. Despite all of them, this game is quite entertaining. I can sit down and quickly find myself playing for hours.

Great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: December 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game.. but make sure you download the patch! It corrects the problems mentioned. This would be a classic if only there were more crops, animals, buildings, etc. This title is screaming for a mod or expansion pack. But even in its basic form, this game is a lot of fun and surprisingly addictive! The first time I sat down to play, I burned almost 3 hours before realising it. It's much better than SimFarm, and is a title that really is unique. So if you are looking for a different kind of business sim, try this one out!

Not bad but could be better

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: February 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Not a bad game overall but compared to other sim games very much behind the power curve. I haven
t had many problems with it other than it just shut down once but I save often now. An auto save feature would be nice. Also, it would be nice to be able to assign the workers a specific task, such as milk cows and such. Another nice thing would be more animals as well as equipment offerings. I realize that it will be all john deere items but more of them would be cool. The graphics could be better but overall they are not bad. I hope that Bold does some more work and makes this the game it could really be.

Review Page: 1 2 3 Next 

Actions