Farm Vet sees gamers take control of a young teenager with an interest in veterinary care who serves as a caretaker for the animals on a farm. He or she is responsible for the general animal maintenance of the farm such as feeding, playing with and treating any health issues on the ten different barnyard animals -- including bunny rabbits, chickens, ducks, goats, horses and sheep -- that you are able to interact with.
Stop that pig!
Players start off the game by choosing a character. At this menu you can select the gender and general look of your character, as well as choosing from one of the game's three difficulty levels.
Every morning players will be given a list of tasks that need to be completed by the end of the day. Some of these tasks involve simple jobs such as filling up the feed bins or playing mini-games - such as collecting eggs or milking the cow. The most difficult part of your day involves treating the sick and injured animals of the farm. In this challenging part of the game, players will be given a variety of medical tools and equipment -- including items such as an x-ray machine, syringes, a thermometer, and even scalpels and other surgical tools -- to observe the animal and form a diagnosis before administering the correct treatment to ensure that the animal returns to full health. This particular feature has been done on many games ranging from The Sims 2: Pets on Nintendo DS to the Pet Vet titles that have appeared on multiple platforms, and sadly Farm Vet doesn't really live up to the presentation of some of the other title's in this genre.
Time to see what's wrong with the bunny.
The most annoying thing about diagnosing and treating animals in Farm Vet is the imprecise 'hot spots' where players need to click on the animals to progress. Sometimes children will find themselves getting very frustrated as they can't find the correct spot to click on a particular animal to treat their disease, often spending several minutes clicking all over the screen.
The greatest strength of the game is its fun collection of mini-games which allow you to perform such tasks and farmyard chores as milking the cow, collecting the chicken's eggs, shearing sheep or even just taking one of the horses out for a ride. With the frustrating elements of the veterinary side of the game, most children would probably find themselves being more entertained by the mini-games that Farm Vet has to offer.
Be careful, they bite.
The biggest weakness of the title is the horrible looking graphics. Apart from the farm animals themselves, everything else takes a blocky look to it that resembles a set of LEGO more than anything you'd find on the farm. Ok, the title is firmly set in the budget children's range of games, but if you do a bit of shopping around you can find something with a greater value for money than this.
Overall, there are a number of fun things to do in Farm Vet with the number of diseases to diagnose and mini-games to play. But at the end of the day, there are a lot of games on the shelves that have similar gameplay for a similar price tag - and for a few dollars more you would be playing those games instead.
Information for parents:
Farm Vet is rated G for a general audience, but it does contain some instances of blood when using the variety of surgical tools on offer. The game also depicts animal sores and will have children children cleaning dirty animal's rear ends and other messy tasks associated with farm management.
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