Farming Simulator 16....

 

Farming Simulator '16..... A mobile version from the franchise. It may be an older edition I've no interest in on a platform I don't really game on ..... But when I saw it on the microsoft store for widows 10 I was intrigued. Not only because it was a mobile version on PC but because it's also free! A few hundred megabytes later and there I was, in the game. It may be a 'mobile version' it has all the key elements of the franchise. 

While it can be played full-screen on PC doing so isn't doing it any favours for the visuals. It allowed me to use keyboard and mouse, as well as an xbox controller; however controlling vehicles is far from a simulation(too fast/responsive). 

Win10:

It's not a great looking game. Then again it's not supposed to look really good... It is what it is and it's supposed to be a mobile game. It is after all an 'older mobile game'. So I suppose the smaller the screen the better for resolution and not nitpicking about it.

Android phone:

Considering it came out in early 2015 and phones/android OS's are so changeable it's more apparent to see visual changes in yearly editions in such short amounts of time. Especially on games that are more dependent on looks. It's not like Farm Sim had ever had an ageless cartoony look to the franchise. So things in the visual department are more noticeable over time. Especially when hardware limits are not what they were year over year and the bar is raised.

No matter the version of the '16 edition, it/they do look old even on the highest setting. Maybe I'm being too harsh but there's a lot of variation in what is detailed and what is not... Like trying to decide if a bush is a bush or an over-sized low res cabbage. The '16 release trailer does a lot to buff the graphics issue, so much so I was second guessing was there really a PC version out the same year.... There wasn't.

Although newer versions of the mobile edition of the franchise are improved, the 'real' pc version is king. Not that they are really in competition with one another. All depends on the hardware a gamer has to use. At least there's an option for a lower demanding version for PC; Plus it's free!

I found that as long as I had the camera angled about halfway; Just enough to see the immediate area and concentrated on the job at hand, the broader area and it's graphical fidelity didn't matter(at least to me). As I said there's a lot in this version of the game(more or less full featured); The game has the good gameplay of the franchise so it's distracting in it's doing. That gameplay makes a gamer blinkered/forgiving to what might be otherwise classified as 'bad graphics'.

It was interesting to see not just on mobile but as a Windows 10 'app'. I've since removed it from Windows. I've other, better, Farm Sim games to ignore on PC('17 and '19). But I will keep it on my phone. It's a minor distraction. At least for me the more variation on that score the better.