The Farm Frenzy franchise is out of control, but entertains and the themes change the pace. Many games use Ancient Rome as a theme and it’s no surprise because it was a fascinating time in history. Pair the backdrop of Ancient Rome with the wild ride that’s Farm Frenzy, and you’ve got a match that has fans fiddling in excitement.

A long time ago, a courageous young woman named Scarlett farmed her land in an effort to feed her country’s soldiers and ensure the return of her beloved from the battlefield. Join her as she races to grow crops, raise animals and produce essential goods before time runs out. Be her guiding hand as she sends her products to market on a galley, dispatch her chariot to fetch the supplies she needs, and protect her farm against barbarian bears in Farm Frenzy: Ancient Rome!

Download and try Farm Frenzy: Ancient Rome.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

This is the third Farm Frenzy 3. I appreciate the developer for keeping the numbering at three because it shows there’s not much difference in terms of game play. The main difference is the setting, so there’s no misleading anyone claiming it’s a whole new game with enhancements. The series has many fans who are happy to keep playing the same game with new challenges.

Farm Frenzy 3: American Pie: Manage five different farms around the world and try your hand at penguin breeding and jewelry making in Farm Frenzy 3! Enjoy outrageously fun levels, wacky animals and more upgrades than there are ears in a field of corn! Grow crops, feed animals, collect produce and manufacture goods, while you enjoy zany animation! Help Scarlett become the president of the Farmers` Union by earning the votes of the people she helps.

Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age: Join Scarlett as she leaves sunshine and warm temperatures behind and travels to the North Pole to check out a farm she purchased through a newspaper ad. When she arrives, she not only finds the property in a state of disrepair, she also meets two brothers who could use her help making ice cream. While whipping up chilly treats in 90 levels of frosty fun, you’ll breed and care for penguins and other arctic animals, manufacture new products and enjoy a parade of visual gags. You’ll also meet a surprise guest who will show his appreciation for your hard work in a special way! Who is it?

Here’s the list of all the Farm Frenzys.

• Farm Frenzy
• Farm Frenzy 2
• Farm Frenzy Pizza Party
• Farm Frenzy 3
• Farm Frenzy 3: American Pie
• Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age

Farm Mania 2 is also out. Anna of Farm Mania is back again! This time she is even more enthusiastic, active and full of great ideas! Wanna have your own farm? No problems! Fruits and vegetables, animals and fishes, dairy plant and bakery – you can have it all with in Farm Mania 2! By the way, Anna got married to a strong and charming farmer Bob and now all their dreams are coming true! You can help them!

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Despite the “3″ in the name, Farm Frenzy 3 is the fourth game in the Farm Frenzy series. Farm Frenzy Pizza Party wasn’t worthy of a number despite its success. Anyhoo, Farm Frenzy 3 brings more of the same while adding international locations and heavy-duty graphics that slow down the game’s performance.

In the latest incarnation, you take care of animals, store the goods, produce other goods and sell them. Cows, chickens and ostriches make it back in this one as do the bears and dogs. This one adds llamas, yaks, penguins and walruses. The international part comes in when Scarlett travels to Africa and other faraway locations to help with the farms as a step toward her goal of becoming president of the farmers union.

Scarlett has different goals to meet for every level. The goal could be earning a set amount of cash, collecting X amount of products or making X amount of products. Sometimes you have one goal and sometimes four. Anything goes.

She also has to buy and upgrade equipment for managing her farm including transportation, product making machines and defenses like cages to trap the bears. Many of the levels require you have certain upgrades before you can play them, so you’ll have to play other levels or replay them until you collect enough cash to upgrade.

The strategy and planning aspect of Farm Frenzy 3 remains one of its strengths. You can’t always play the next level and you’ll have to experiment with different strategies to earn the gold or silver star. This approach prevents boredom and predictability while boosting replayability.

One of the flaws in the game is the graphics. Oh, they’re gorgeous, but too much for the game’s performance. When clicking bears to cage them, the game jerks and the graphics flake. This happens too often. I’ll take performance over graphics every time.

Farm Frenzy 3 has a couple of strange features. For one, the dogs that keep the bears away from the animals now roll off the screen with the bears. I like that the bear gets out of my way instead of just stands there while the dog barks. But the way the dog rolls off freaks you out. The other problem is the African farmer who looks like an inappropriate stereotype. I appreciate the developers try to reflect the African culture — but it’s not the best representation of Africans.

Despite the performance issues, Farm Frenzy 3 keeps you hopping and never bores. The game comes with 95 levels, 30 animals of which 5 are the enemies, and 33 products to produce. Because of its diversity in game play, animals and scenes, you’re more willing to try reaching for the gold though it means replaying levels many times.

Download and try the game.

When Farm Frenzy 2 hit the download stands, I couldn’t wait to install it and start running my farm. Ohh… big mistake. I can’t stop playing the game and I have games lining up by the day waiting for my eyes and hands.

Like Farm Frenzy, the sequel has me taking care of animals, producing goods, storing them, and selling them so I can buy more animals to make more products. The circle of life on a farm. The original contains sheep, ducks, cows, dogs, and cats. This one brings back the cows, dogs and cats. It uses chickens for eggs instead of ducks, and the expensive ostrich for producing feathers.

The first paragraph of my original review applies to this one: Its fun, colorful, and cartoon-style graphics easily catches my youngest child’s attention. 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. Of course, I love the graphics style, too.

Instead of cupcakes and wool, this one cooks up cakes, meat dish (at least, the game doesn’t sacrifice the animals), cheese, fans, hats, and an atelier. An atelier is a workshop and I suppose we’re making dolls or doll clothes.

I wish the game would offer hints for the very difficult levels. Getting gold rarely happens. Just reaching silver feels like a huge accomplishment. I’ve played all the levels and still have some levels to replay because I haven’t earned the silver medal. One level gives gold for those who complete it in three minutes and ten seconds. I don’t even come close. Hints, please!

As I work around paths, houses and fences improve with every level completion. I guess not only do we work to accomplish tasks, but also improve the little country side. Not clear, but it’s rewarding to see improvements.

This comes with awards, but some of the trophies don’t come when you think you’ve accomplished them. I replay an easier level and add cats and dogs so they would pick up all the products and cage all of the bears. But I still don’t earn the trophy. Some trophies need more explanation. For example, “For expedient production.” OK, what counts as fast enough to earn the trophy?

One trophy — that I don’t figure out right away — comes when you find all the gags. On occasion, a bear will peak out from the top. Click them and you’ve found a gag. Well, gee, I don’t want to replay all the levels until I find all the gags. The game never says to click these gags, so I miss them early on not knowing I’m supposed to click them.

Players must unlock unlimited mode by playing career mode. The trophy room describes some trophies as getting X things in “Survival.” Not everyone will figure out Survival = Endless mode.

Farm Frenzy 2 has a few kinks. Every now and then, the game freaks out and spews out an error message. It may take a couple of reloads, but the game eventually works again. Its loading speed isn’t as good as it should be. Waiting for the game to load takes longer than expected of today’s games.

Gotta run. Farm Frenzy 2 teases me with the few remaining blue spots (where I didn’t earn a silver). Obviously, it’s addiction and a joy to play.

Download it from your favorite site:

• BigFishGames
• Reflexive

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 try Farm Frenzy.