Farming Simulator

I will literally play anything if it is a simulation.  Build a tower?  Please.  Live your exact same life, only digitally?  Obviously.  Run a hospital?  In my sleep.  So a farming simulator?  Yes!  It speaks to my Iowa soul.  I have wanted this game for such a long, long time.  It has hovered around the $30 mark as a download, and same for buying the disk, so when it was on sale this last week for $10, we snatched it up.  I am frugal, and exceedingly patient.  I also wanted to be careful. so I read reviews and looked at forums.  I found lots of positive out there, it sounded so fun.

I'm here to lay some truth on you.

First off, it is fun.  It is peaceful.  But I'll be double dipped if it isn't confusing, and actually hard to understand.  I honestly think you have to be an actual farmer to know what to do in this game, and all the farmers I know are too busy actually farming to pretend to be a farmer on their Xbox.  The game offers shockingly little guidance.  There are a few tutorials for basic tractor driving skills, and understanding a little about the whole planting/harvesting scenario... but when you start your own career farm you're just left there.  Standing in a field.  What now!?  I have never before felt like I needed a walkthrough like I do on this game.  A sim game.  I've built thriving metropolises before, but I can't grow and harvest wheat?! I am boggled over how to feed a chicken?? What is wrong with me?

And the kicker is, I've looked back through the forums, searching for someone to commiserate with.  A post about how hard it is to drive the front loader.  Someone else who can't pick up a pallet.  But no, it appears that I am alone in my struggles.  So I am here for you, dear reader, if you have also fallen prey to the promise of a fun farming simulator and now you have no idea what to do and are somehow $126,000 in debt.

Won't stop me from playing though.  There's nothing quite like driving a tractor.

Telltale and Gearbox Give Me A Much Needed Break.

 
Tales From The Borderlands is one of Telltale Games' latest release.  It fits the typical description of any Telltale experience including an episodic narrative, point and click game play, and choice based storytelling.  Thankfully, Tales From The Borderlands brings a lot more enjoyment and lightheartedness.

One can easily say that they don't want to play Tales because they didn't like Gearbox's Borderlands or Telltale's flagship game, The Walking Dead.  I would argue, that Tales From The Borderlands is the perfect game for those people.  Don't like the fast paced yet somehow repetitive nature of Borderlands?  Tales is strictly story driven and doesn't require side missions or level grinding.  Don't care for the slow build and intense emotions that come with The Walking Dead?  Tales provides funny characters and almost as much quick button action as there is dialogue.

Do yourself a solid and buy the first episode.  Follow the ridiculous characters with their sophomoric humor on an adventure throughout Pandora.