Farm Manager 2022 | PS4 Review
Updated: Jul 21, 2022
Well, I’ve got a brand-new combine harvester and I’ll give you the key... It's no secret that my love for farming simulator games is immeasurable, so when I was given the opportunity to review the PlayStation 4 version of Farm Manager 2022, I was just a wee bit excited. Developed by Cleversan Software and published by Ultimate Games, Farm Manager 2022 is available to buy now on PlayStation, and XBox.
On start-up I was given the option, as expected, to partake in a tutorial which is (usually) a great way to learn the basic ins and outs of a game like this. Unfortunately, this is not the case here. The tutorial is terrible and gives you very, VERY little useful information. At one point in the tutorial, it just stopped progressing and left me wondering if the game had stalled or crashed. I couldn’t move the camera or enter any menus at this time. It all left me very confused. After a period of around 5 minutes with nothing happening, the game finally kicked back into life, and I was able to carry on with the tutorial. Unlike Farming Simulator 22 where the player drives around in the different machines, Farm Manager 2022 puts you in the position of general manager of a farm which, in all honesty, I kind of prefer this option. Upon completion of the dreadful tutorial, I was thrown back to the main menu where it gives you a choice of 3 different game modes - Campaign, free mode, or scenario. I spent the bulk of my time in campaign mode.
In campaign mode, you take control of a piece of land with buildings which are run down and destroyed. Your job is to restore them and build the farm from the ground up. As you progress through the chapters, you add more production items to the farm. This kind of acts as a more in-depth tutorial as it shows you all the different kinds of processes and procedures you can have on your farm however, just like the actual tutorial, there really is not enough explanation on how to do these tasks. Each chapter sets you different objectives and you are left to figure everything else out yourself. One objective was to produce and sell a set amount of sheep’s milk. There is not enough direction or information given to the player on how to do this. I had 2 sheep sheds full of sheep who were producing a large amount of milk, but I couldn't figure out how on earth to sell it. It wasn’t appearing in the marketplace, and I couldn't select it from any menus. There were no instructions provided by the game on how to proceed. I really feel that this is a big issue with farming sim type games in general. The tutorials just do not provide you with enough details and information which leaves you having to figure out most things for yourself. You can grow fields full of crops, orchards full of trees, greenhouses full of fruits and vegetables, sheds full of cows, sheep, and goats. There is an endless number of things to keep you entertained and keep you going back for more. Animals produce milk which can either be sold as is or be made into cheese and sold for a higher price. You can even build a slaughterhouse to turn the animals into meat to sell.
To be able to keep all these different processes running, you must hire staff to carry out the work. Each member of staff has their own strengths and weaknesses, so you really need to be careful and select the right person for each job. If you assign someone who specialises in machines to work with your animals for example, things will probably not end well for you or your animals. There is also the option to hire permanent or seasonal workers which I thought was a great idea. Permanent staff is required to care for your animals and such, whereas in harvesting season, you can hire seasonal workers which are needed to tend to the fields. Seasons also play a big part in what can and cannot be done in Farm Manager 2022, so you need to be careful and really plan accordingly for each season. One downside I found was the inability to assign a worker to a designated field which is very annoying. I had a field that needed work and it sat there for months without any workers attending to it. If I could have clicked on a worker and specifically assigned them to that field, it would have made things easier and much less frustrating. There is so much to do in Farm Manager 2022 and so many different avenues for you to explore in terms of expanding your farm.
The menus are unnecessarily confusing and difficult to navigate. The button assignments are not in the slightest bit intuitive, and it takes a good amount of time to get used to the rather perplexing controller layout. Farm Manager 2022 gives you the ability to speed up time and pause time which allows you to get on top of any issues before they get worse which is a very welcome addition and can keep you from getting overwhelmed by everything that is going on.
Visually, the graphics in Farm Manager 2022 are not great and I would go as far as to say they were really quite poor. There is no great detail on vehicles, buildings or any of the scenery. Textures take time to load in. This was particularly apparent whenever the season changed from one to another. It was taking at least a whole minute for all the textures to load in when for example, snow was appearing or disappearing. For a PlayStation 4 release, this really isn’t good enough. At one point during my gameplay, the season changed and the screen glitched out causing it to turn the ground black and the cursor disappeared. It took around five minutes for everything to return to normal. Audio wise, the sound effects were okay, and the music was quite pleasant. I had no real issues here.
So, to sum up, Farm Manager 2022 is an in-depth dive into the world of farming. Even with its few issues, most of them stemming from a lack of information given to the player on how to do things and an un-intuitive navigation system, I really enjoyed playing this and will definitely be heading back into it for more farming exploits. It’s not perfect by any means and more than a little frustrating at times however, at its lower price point, I would still recommend this. It will keep you busy for hours on end.
PaultheBrave09’s Rating: 3 out of 5.
For more information on Farm Manager 2022 please use the following links...
Cleversan Software - Developer | YouTube | Twitter | Website
Ultimate Games - Publisher | Facebook | Twitter | Website
Many thanks to Ultimate Games for the Review Key.
Farm Manager 2022 | PlayStation | XBox
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