Those who want to get under the game's hood and mess with its innards will enjoy working with the expanded graphics menus. The most important of these is the 'Hardware Profile' item, which establishes overall graphics quality via settings for Low, Medium, High, and Very High. Among others, they include such things as HUD scaling, the visual field, brightness, image mode, and vertical synch. Along with the general settings, you'll find 11 additional features beyond resolution to dig into. The options menu offers a wide range of choices to manage.

The limitations of a small developer organization clearly make themselves felt in the areas of game controls and infrastructure.

It's our frank opinion that game navigation and most of the menus could easily be made more user-friendly and attractive. Although this is the 17th version, they'll find that its tutorials do a half-way decent job of helping them understand and manipulate its many game elements. But newbies need not worry too much about jumping late to this game. That adjective - atmospheric - carries over into much of this game. But this, too, has its own curious charm and gives the game an occasional dash of slapstick humor.Īll in all the overall graphics are workmanlike, though in some situations (such as when rendering tall grass in a sunset scene) you'll see lots of atmospheric effects. Game physics vary between good and curiously bad, as when the Bulldog trailers take to the air behind your tractor (if hauled through a confined space of your own making).

Only the farming equipment is very sharp, almost lovingly detailed when rendered. Even at the highest level of detail, graphics look a little fuzzy, whether rendering characters or textures. Technically speaking, the 17th edition of this game is a little underwhelming.

Farm simulator 17 news