Farm Frenzy Review by Meryl

If there is a game that compels the kids to sing, “Old MacDonald had a farm” repeatedly, Farm Frenzy is it. Its fun, colorful, and cartoon-style graphics easily catches the attention of my sons ages four and eight. For me, the game keeps me up late as I’m keen on earning at least a silver star in every spot as I work my way around town.

Those who have played Chicken Chase can’t help but recognize the similarities between the two games. I enjoyed Chicken Chase, but I like this one better because it has more variety and the Farm Frenzy’s bears are less annoying than the Chase’s ravens. I also don’t feel as panicky around the bears. Those ravens just made me nuts.

Every level of the 45-plus level game contains goals to meet to conquer the level and move on up to the next. Do it fast, and you can earn a gold or a silver star. What is just ducky about this one is that you can’t lose. If you take too long completing the goals, you simply don’t get bonuses or stars and you can move on. That’s one of the things about the casual game industry — it’s not always about winning — it’s about having fun and challenging yourself to earn stars and trophies.

Farm Frenzy involves taking care of the animals by ensuring they have plenty to eat. While keeping their tummies happy, you also purchase machines, upgrades, and more animals. But you may not have enough money on hand, so go to the market and sell up to nine products including eggs, cupcakes, wool, milk, and cheese.

Your truck and product storehouse may not hold what you need, so upgrade them to gain more space to hold more stuff. The game requires planning and strategy to find the right balance in feeding your animals, having the needed funds, and meeting your goals for the level.

You also buy and upgrade manufacturing buildings that can turn eggs into egg solids, egg solids into cupcakes, wool into thread and so on. Products sell for various prices, but of course those made from other products go for bigger bucks as it takes more time and processing to make them.

The trophies provide another challenge. Since you can play any level again, you can try to capture a trophy by playing the right level. There’s a trophy for never picking up a product. This means you need cats to do the work for you and they’re not always fast or reliable. So find the level where you can quickly buy cats or it comes with cats. One caveat, if you don’t earn a star for the level on the second time around — you lose the original star, if you had one.

The bears? They do what you expect them to do… steal your animals. Boy, it bugs me when they steal my more expensive animals like the $10,000 cow. It’s all in the name of eggciting fun, though. Can’t bear to deal with them? Count on farmer’s best friend, the dogs, to help hold off the bears. They’re not free, though, unless you’re lucky the level comes with them.

While my sons love watching the game, it would be too hard for them to play even for the eight-year-old. It’s a frenzied game (Gee, I wonder how they came up with the name, Farm Frenzy?) and involves multi-tasking and many steps.

Farm Frenzy is an eggcellent all around game that mixes arcade with management without the stink or picking up after the animals. It definitely milks the money you pay for the game for all its worth. Those who are sheepish about buying games can milk every dime with Farm Frenzy’s long lasting game play. All right, I’ll stop with the farm puns already!

Download and play Farm Frenzy.

We give Farm Frenzy a 4.5/5 diamond rating