The title of John Deere's Harvest in the Heartland should already tell adrenaline junkies and fans of twitch-based shooters that they might want to reach for something else. Sim fans, especially those interested in farming games, should find the game's business themes and incremental progress more enjoyable.

The farm setting of Harvest in the Heartland immediately invites comparison with Natsume's Harvest Moon series, the popular multi-platform agrarian series. However, most of the role-playing interactions have been stripped from the Heartland, and more emphasis is placed on the dollars and statistics that make up this virtual world. The tradeoff means that it's easier to quantify how both you and your farm are doing, but tougher to feel like an integrated member of the game's community. Thankfully, it also means that you're not encouraging minors to get married and have babies through pervy love-interest storylines.

Players should find the tools and concepts familiar; you use tools like your gloves, hoe, and watering can to plant, water, and harvest seeds. In addition to cows and chickens, the game offers players a chance to raise goats and pigs for cash, using additional tools and buildings to keep them happy. Heartland is aggressive about tracking the costs involved with these undertakings, and both profits and expenses will float upwards from your character accompanied by a cash register noise whenever money is involved. The game's real innovation comes in the player's ability to use John Deere-branded tractors.

It's not a complete surprise. With top billing in the game's title, John Deere equipment is expected in the game, and its green and yellow logo appears on baseball caps worn by various characters, as well as on the shirt of the game's authorized John Deere dealer. Yes, he has his own shop in town. Tough luck, CAT and International Harvester, you'll have to go create monopolies in your own virtual worlds.

Does the game offer a realistic tractor-driving experience? Not particularly, but it does a good job of showing the tractor as the backbone of a successful farm, vital to players who want to run a serious business that grows more than just a tiny carrot patch in the front yard. Tractor attachments (purchased in the John Deere store) can perform almost all of the tilling, planting, and harvesting done by hand, with the exception of watering. The sound effects and engine noises for the tractor are also fun.

Besides greatly simplifying the work on the farm, tractors also help players keep their sanity. Returning to the farm triggers a loading delay, which can happen when coming back from town or closing out of the "tool shed" screen. Early-game farming is an exercise in patience, as one selects the hoe, waits for the farm to load, tills the soil and selects seeds, waits for the farm to load, plants seeds and selects the watering can, waits for the farm to load, and generally curses small-scale farm efforts that require frequent tool switches. The "garage" screen has the same loading delay, but it breaks up the game play much less when players can spend more time on the tractor tending to bigger fields spread over a larger area. It still would have been nice to be able to switch between tools on the fly, especially because the game can lock up and never come out of the loading screen.