FarmVille vs. Barn Buddy

Can't decide which one to choose for your gardening fix? I'll help you out.

FarmVille is created by Zynga, the gaming company that brought us Vampire Wars, Mafia Wars and Texas Hold'Em Poker. Barn Buddy is made by TheBroth, Inc. Both are still in beta stage so let's give 'em some lovin'.

Before you can plant your first seed in FarmVille, you must create a farmer first. That part is fun. I made mine with dreadlocks!In Barn Buddy, you are given simple instructions: you must first buy seeds, plant them, take care of them and then sell them. You have watering can for dry soil, insecticide for bugs and herbicide for unwanted weeds. The glove is for harvesting. The storehouse is where you keep your crops. When you sell your crops, you can even announce it in Facebook as a status update.In FV, your crops grow faster. Unlike in BB where some plants could take a day or two to reach their potential. But then again you can always buy fertilizers to speed things up.

Now let's talk about the crops. In FV, aside from the usual crops, you can plant rice, take care of trees, buy buildings and even animals! But I give props to BB for creating more realistic looking crops.Both games want you to interact with your Facebook friends. In FV, you can have your friends as your neighbors. You can visit their farms and perform tasks for them. But the thing is, the task is given in a small dialog box and you just need to click a button to accept the offer. And that's it! Wham, Bam, Thank You, Ma'am! In BB, you can visit your friend's farm and actually water their drying soil, remove bugs or weeds or even steal from them.In BB, you can customize messages that you show whenever a fellow farmer does sumpthin' in your farm. Like in my case, when somebody removes a weed, I display this message, "I twittered Yaya na to do that later". You can be as crazy as you want ;oP

Verdict: I enjoy Barn Buddy more 'cause it's much simpler to play. Even my nephew, Lance, an 8-year-old kid enjoys playing it. When your fella farmer needs help, you don't just click buttons, you actually do sumpthin. The plants look more realistic too. If you wanna know more about Barn Buddy, here's my old post.