FarmVille 2: Zynga's Latest Contribution to Facebook Addiction

If you were one of the many that fell hopelessly addicted to Zynga's FarmVille game launched in 2009, you better be careful with the company's latest title. After many months in development and several more in closed beta, Zynga made its highly anticipated FarmVille 2 available to players on both Facebook and Zynga.com.

Initially, the original was able to capture the hearts of millions of virtual Facebook farmers, but the game's addicted player base has declined over the years. Despite the launch of many, many titles since, FarmVille remains Zynga's biggest hit. But now it looks like things are about to change thanks to FarmVille 2.

In addition to brand new Flash 11-powered 3D graphics, the sequel brings with it major changes to the game's farming aspect. Now, instead of getting coins from your tomatoes, you get... well... tomatoes! With a brand new crafting system in play, players now have to balance feeding their animals, watering their plots and crafting items to sell using harvested materials.

If you played the original FarmVille to a high level, you probably remember the incessant clicking required to tend to and harvest your massive farm. Now, your wrists and fingers will be pleased to learn that FarmVille 2 lets you use sweeping motions to water, plant or harvest with one simple action.

It's still too early to tell whether or not the sequel will trump its predecessor in amassing an army of addicted players, but we have to admit just the visuals alone make it quite tempting.

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Tuan Mai
Tuan Mai is a Los Angeles based writer and marketing manager working within the PC Hardware industry. He has written for Tom's Guide since 2010, with a special interest in the weird and quirky.
  • amuffin
    Engie: Nope.avi!
    Reply
  • Women aren't meant to be gamers, Zynga.
    Reply
  • dameon51
    I'm surprised they didn't HTML5 it instead of flash. Lots of casual gamers have iphones/ipads so they won't be able to play on those devices. But then again... lots of casual gamers also use IE7 and 8 still which are very out of date can don't support HTML 5 goodies.
    Reply
  • nekoangel
    kill it with fire!
    Reply
  • sylvez
    dameon51I'm surprised they didn't HTML5 it instead of flash. Lots of casual gamers have iphones/ipads so they won't be able to play on those devices. But then again... lots of casual gamers also use IE7 and 8 still which are very out of date can don't support HTML 5 goodies.
    HTML5 exposes your code. Still not feasible for profit driven stuff at this stage.
    And.. iPhone/iPad users can go play with themselves for Mr Jobs' decision to drop support for flash.
    Reply
  • hunshiki
    sylvezHTML5 exposes your code. Still not feasible for profit driven stuff at this stage.And.. iPhone/iPad users can go play with themselves for Mr Jobs' decision to drop support for flash.
    Adobe dropped flash for Linux and Android too. It's a hassle to use on PC (it crashes for me in every other browser... except Chrome which uses it's in-built flash.) It's a terrible software. Jobs made a good decision.
    Reply
  • thecolorblue
    hunshikiAdobe dropped flash for Linux and Android too. It's a hassle to use on PC (it crashes for me in every other browser... except Chrome which uses it's in-built flash.) It's a terrible software. Jobs made a good decision.sounds like your computer is messed up bro - flash works just fine for me, on multiple browsers old and new.
    Reply
  • camel82
    Early '90s graphic and gameplay (needing good 2010's hardware and up to date software to play it), plus you have to pay the connection's bill, plus spam and paid contents.
    Epic win for Zynga to be able to sell it so well on "web 2.0".
    Epic fail for "modern" users.
    Reply
  • dameon51
    sylvezHTML5 exposes your code. Still not feasible for profit driven stuff at this stage.And.. iPhone/iPad users can go play with themselves for Mr Jobs' decision to drop support for flash.Server side code isn't exposed. Think of all the countless other web sites/apps that are out there that are non-flashed based. They don't have a problem. Ebay... google docs.... facebook.... Hell, Steam is driven by HTML on the front end, you can even view the source in Steam. HTML5 and JS are just used for the front end stuff.
    Reply
  • mrmaia
    This article looks like cheap advertising.

    Zynga will NEVER regain the massive player base they once had, no matter what they do. The pit can only get deeper for them.
    Reply