Common Sense Media Review
By Erin Bell
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Strong edutainment value; weak graphics.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's It About?
FARM VET lets players step into the shoes of a caregiver who's responsible for feeding, playing with, and treating 10 types of barnyard animals, including ducks, chickens, rabbits, pigs, horses, goats, and sheep. Players choose a character by selecting gender, appearance, and clothing and can select one of three difficulty levels.
Each morning your trusty PDA outlines a to-do list that you must complete before the day is over. Some duties are as simple as topping up feed bins or playing mini-games like collecting eggs or milking the cow.
Is It Any Good?
The most challenging part of the game is treating sick and injured animals. With a variety of medical instruments and tools at your disposal -- including an X-Ray machine, syringes, swabs, a thermometer, and even surgical tools -- you must use powers of deduction and observation to arrive at a diagnosis, then administer the correct treatment.
Farm Vet's graphics could be better, and the game suffers from finicky controls, imprecise "hot spots" to click on the animals, and a wildly swinging camera. Although the game claims 60 different medical problems to treat, they seem to repeat very frequently. That said, Farm Vet does provide a lot of interesting reading material for young budding veterinarians in the family, including a glossary of tools and animals and a database of farm-related careers
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the differences between being a farm vet and a pet vet. Why are veterinarians such an important part of farm life?
Game Details
- Platform : Windows
- Pricing structure :
- Available online? : Not available online
- Publisher : Vivendi Universal Games
- Release date : January 31, 2008
- Genre : Simulation
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : August 25, 2016
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
Suggest an Update
Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
See how we rate