Farming Simulator 17: Nintendo Switch Edition - Switch

Also known as: Farming Simulator 17: Collector's Edition', 'Farming Simulator 17: Nintendo Switch Edition', 'Farming Simulator 17: Platinum Edition

Got packs, screens, info?
Farming Simulator 17: Nintendo Switch Edition (Switch)
Also for: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Viewed: 3D Third-person, floating camera Genre:
Simulation
Strategy: Management
Media: Cartridge Arcade origin:No
Developer: Giants Software Soft. Co.: Giants Software
Publishers: Focus Home Interactive (GB)
Released: 7 Nov 2017 (GB)
Ratings: PEGI 3+
Features: Handheld Mode, TV Mode, Tabletop Mode

Summary

Developed by Giants Software and published by Focus Home Entertainment, Farming Sim 17 puts you in the muddy boots of a farmer just getting started.

You have a few fields, some tractors and the attachments needed to work your land, and a bank loan that needs paying off. It is entirely up to you how you go about working your own land, helping out the other farmers in the area and paying off that pesky loan/earning enough cash to buy out every other farmer in the county.

Gameplay settles into a very comfortable pace. You first have to prepare your field, either by aerating it or ploughing it. This involves dragging a glorified rake behind your tractor. Once you've done that you have to seed the field. There are many crops to choose from that have different market values and growth cycles. You use a machine called a Seeder for this, and once again it gets dragged behind a tractor making sure to cover the whole field.

After that you have to wait until the first signs of growth. Once those little green shoots pop up jump in a fertiliser/muck spreader and get those nutrients all over the field. Do this up to three times at different growth stages and your final crop will yield a massive boost over a standard crop. Crop all grown up? Sweet, time to jump in the combine harvester and harvest the living seeds out of those plants!

Thankfully you can hire temporary workers to continue a job you've started, and these AI-controlled NPCs will do all of the jobs described above to varying levels of success. This means you are free to do more interesting things, like buy new equipment (there are over 250 farming vehicles and equipment from over 75 manufacturers, including the likes of Challenger, Fendt, Massey Ferguson and Valtra), take produce to the various buyers around town and shoot some hoops... Yes, you read that right, you can go and shoot a basketball at a hoop in town (there is a trophy for getting a three-point shot).

The most productive thing to do once all your fields are planted or you have hired help working your farm is to head to the field you don't own and offer to help, this comes in the form of 'quests' that increase your standing with the field's owner and give you some cash. Each quest gives you a single goal - harvest, plant, fertilise - and a time limit. You are provided with the equipment and left to get on with it, completing the task well within the given time limit yields bonus cash.

In fact, when you think about how videogame-y farming really is, you'll be amazed more farmers aren't glued to games consoles instead of tramping around their fields in wellies!