By John Walker on October 10th, 2012 at 2:00 pm.
It’s too much in an Olympic year. Can we really cope with the news that there’s to be a Farm Machine Championships 2013? A game depicting competitive events such as… potato planting?
Part of me wants to believe that products from the likes of PlayWay and Excalibur are a trick that’s being played on me, an elaborate ruse to make me look silly because I thought Old Village Simulator 1962 and Camping Manager were real things. But that part of me knows it is wrong. And the rest of me desperately wants to share the trailer for Farm Machine Championships 2013 with you. And then see if I can start a war.
I wondered if there was a real-world equivalent to this – it would make some degree of sense if there really were such a championship that this was emulating. But the closest I’ve been able to find are tractor pulls, which seem to involve very little planting of potatoes or “bricking the straw”. Which is a shame, as if I were up at 2am and it was on, I’d watch it. Instead, watch this:
You know, one of my favourite things in the world is when a game has a “mouse click” noise when you click on a button in a menu. Just in case the mouse click noise my mouse made when I clicked it on the button wasn’t loud enough. More peculiar is how little it all seems to have to do with anything involving a championship, until finally – finally! – at two and a half minutes in, we get to see some tractor races. (It’s kind of unfortunate that it says “realistic machine handling” just as the tractors awkwardly shuffle their way into a turn.)
But, I wonder, could this be the start of an ugly war? PlayWay seem to be the new players on the block here, with only 12 games under their belt compared to Excalibur’s 89 billion. Both publishers seem to be hell-bent on making astonishingly niche games looking as though they were developed in 2002. And PlayWay’s tractor game does seem to have used an awfully familiar-looking font.
Theirs:
Excalibur’s:
FIGHT!
10/10/2012 at 14:05 noom says:
Looks like crop to me.
10/10/2012 at 14:07 JackShandy says:
I think you’re tractor straw hay off.
10/10/2012 at 14:09 Ian says:
It’s probably farm better than you think.
10/10/2012 at 14:22 killbilly says:
That’s not what I herd.
10/10/2012 at 14:32 atticus says:
With these new installments, I think the barn has been raised when it comes to farming simulators.
10/10/2012 at 14:40 Groove says:
An olymic-themed game about driving tractors?
Sounds like the perfect game for gold farmers.
10/10/2012 at 14:46 Safewood says:
Let’s just hope the price is sheep enough, cause I have seen plenty of corny price points for these simulator kind of games.
10/10/2012 at 14:47 Safewood says:
Are you hay?
10/10/2012 at 15:02 NailBombed says:
The idea that people actually buy games like this one really gets my goat.
10/10/2012 at 15:11 McDan says:
It’s a hard life being a farmer, they barley survive wheat to wheat.
10/10/2012 at 16:38 Steed says:
Absolutely stooked to play this, just gotta plough through the street sweeping sim first!
(Oh man, McDan, that was superb – a punnet of puns.)
10/10/2012 at 18:06 patricio says:
but cerealsly, that looks amaizeing
11/10/2012 at 02:47 Craig Stern says:
One of the things that sets Farm Machine Championships 2013 apart is the voice-over work. They actually got Will Smith to do voice-overs for one of the competitions: The Thresh Prince of Bel-Aire.
10/10/2012 at 14:06 Lambchops says:
Looks like this tie-in has been farmed off to the cheapest developer.
10/10/2012 at 14:21 GallonOfAlan says:
If they keep coming up with stuff like this then they’ll need a bale out.
10/10/2012 at 14:10 yhancik says:
I love how bold italic sans serif font with a light-grey gradient has become the de facto standard for simulators titles.
10/10/2012 at 14:33 SominiTheCommenter says:
I remembered something…
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/wp-content/themes/rockpapershotgun/images/logo.png
Hmmmm….
10/10/2012 at 15:34 yhancik says:
!
10/10/2012 at 16:10 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Hmm indeed.. *strokes chin*
10/10/2012 at 16:31 Zorganist says:
Perhaps Rock, Paper, Shotgun is just a front for Excalibur Publishing, and all of their ad revenues are secretly being spent on niche simulation games. CONSPIRACY!
10/10/2012 at 17:33 The Random One says:
Glorified Blog Simulator 2013
11/10/2012 at 02:07 Skabooga says:
You guys just blew my mind.
10/10/2012 at 14:13 mooken says:
I’m so glad this is coming out on the PC instead of console, the PhysX engine makes all the difference in the world when you try and replicate wheat husk particle physics. I lost my $#)@ at 2:15 with what looks like the next great multiplayer mode — every game is going to be copying this from now on. At least we’ll know who originated.
Oh, and because this is always appropriate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEJHrmliVQw
10/10/2012 at 14:42 SominiTheCommenter says:
This meme was much better than WARFACE.
NEVAR FORGET!
10/10/2012 at 16:02 SonicTitan says:
SNARKFACE!
10/10/2012 at 16:00 db1331 says:
I can’t see anything about Farming Simulator without hearing that fucking song. It’s like Pavlovian conditioning.
10/10/2012 at 14:19 CobraLad says:
TRACTOR freaking RACES
10/10/2012 at 14:40 Sparkasaurusmex says:
WTB Camping Manager!
10/10/2012 at 15:10 waaaaaaaals says:
Nothing beats White Van Racer for being the best and yet the worst idea for a cheaply made game.
10/10/2012 at 16:11 Berzee says:
I have participated in bricking the straw/hay a few times in my day. I drove the tractor once, and managed not to kill anybody! I found it tricky enough that I am willing to accept a championship based upon it, but less tricky than I imagine (say) motocross to be.
10/10/2012 at 17:31 mpk says:
“Zombie Driver. Genre: Apocalypse Simulator”
That’s me. I’m done for the day.
10/10/2012 at 19:10 Artist says:
I take my combine harvester +1 and beat the shit out of any enemy you field against me!
10/10/2012 at 19:40 Dozer says:
The 2007 World Ploughing Championship was held in Tasmania not very far from where I live. Dad pointed out the field as we drove by on the old highway. It looked like a field, no mistake.
10/10/2012 at 21:09 oyog says:
I really kind of hope all those American themed assets are reused on the European maps.
10/10/2012 at 22:24 hamburger_cheesedoodle says:
This is a Real Thing that Actually Exists!?
10/10/2012 at 23:23 Symce says:
At 1.19 in that trailer it says Precission Driving, seriously they make spelling errors in their own advertisement trailers, nuff said.
10/10/2012 at 23:46 remoteman21333 says:
I’ll always wondered how publishers like this can survive in the industry. But I guess videos like these help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEJHrmliVQw
11/10/2012 at 05:57 zhanbao21 says:
http://uuz.cc/ahVA
11/10/2012 at 22:54 stupid_mcgee says:
Dude, Farming Simulator has been MLG for years now. Just check out some of the pro montage vids on the net.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEJHrmliVQw&feature=related
11/10/2012 at 22:58 stupid_mcgee says:
Of course, the real pros stick to Forklift Truck Simulator 2009. It’s like comparing pro TF2 to CS:S. FTS’09 is just so much more h4rdc0r3!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhNFrPtbKGc