There are any number of different games that allow you to “simulate” one thing or another. You can manage a diner, become a mafia don, grow fish in an aquarium or if you are wanting that Greenacres life, you can marshal your resources and manage your very own farm. Alwar’s latest contribution to this virtual agriculture experience is Farm Frenzy 2.
I tried it recently on my iPod touch to see if my chicken raising skills were up to scratch. Right out of the box I was impressed with the cute graphics. I jumped right in with the fairly intuitive poke to act interface. To start, I was in control of a farm and my goal was to meet each day’s goals, which might be to make a specific amount of money or raise a certain number of animals.
In order to do that you drop grass down on the ground for your two or three chickens to feed on. If you run out of water you have to pay to use the well and if you don’t replenish the food your chickens will die. Chickens lay eggs, which you click on and goes in your storage area. Depending on your goal, you might spend some money on building, say, a powdered egg shed, which turns your eggs into something you can sell at the market or used to make other items.
To keep cash coming in you’ll send a truck or plane to the city to see your goods and you’ll have to wait for them to return before spending the money. As with most economic simulations you can select which items you want to sell at the supermarket and how many items to sell. Predators like bears that arrive on the farm and whack your chickens away need to be trapped; you can trap them by quickly clicking on them before they can do any serious harm.
WIth the money you earn there are five products to buy in the city. There are also four animals, four types of bears, 12 buildings and 16 products to produce. If it’s not incentive enough to access all of this material, you can also earn nearly 20 awards, for completing levels in a certain amount of time or playing 10 consecutive levels without losing an animal or other accomplishments.
One thing I found was the relatively high difficulty level of this game, when things get quite chaotic on your farm and you’re expected to madly click to pick up eggs, protect chickens and send vehicles to the city -“ all at the same time. The tasks stay the same but you have to do more of them faster. What compounds this problem is the lack of a Hint button, which could’ve in handy when you don’t know what to do next (there is a general Help screen, though). If you stick with it long enough and are quick to click you can have a farm that will make Arnold the Pig proud.
You can get Farm Frenzy 2 for $2.99 at the iTunes App store.
Pros:
- Challenging resource management.
- Many upgrades for farm available. Impressive graphics and animation.
- Two game modes.
- Can win awards.
Cons:
- No hint system when things difficult game
- Soundtrack gets very repetitive.
Rating: 3.5 
