...........................................Moderator comment...................................

Merry Christmas to all.

I am away till late this evening so won't be able to moderate till early in the morning (Boxing Day). If you are having problems installing or playing the game, please check the FAQ's thread HERE. You could also post a comment in the game discussion forums HERE (you will require a forum account), where the community is more likely to see after the giveaway has ended.

Often the problem is the security software you have installed, or other conflicts with programs running in the background. Zemana Antimalware deleted the executable when I tried to install it last night (the MPC version). Temporarily disabling your security will probably fix the issue.

If you do have a few moments let us know what you think of today game giveaway. That said, family comes first. see you later..

Merry Christmas to all, I wish you all a fantastic and fruitful day. If you have time to post a comment it is appreciated. Unfortunately I won't be able to moderate for much of the day. We traditionally go to my wifes parents for Christmas dinner and some present openings, leaving mid morning and staying to mid evening. I will moderate any comments posted when I return. If you do have the time to post a comment it is appreciated, but as it's Christmas day, family is more important. Have a fantastic day and I hope you all get something you really wanted. :)

Thank you to all who took the time to post feedback about yesterdays game, and :)

Please only post comments about the game being given away today; other comments either not appropriate, or not about the game may be deleted; however a little light banter among community members and with the moderator to keep this a friendly place to visit will be allowed, and will be judged by the moderator as to whether it is suitable or not to be left.

I am posting this in light of the massive increase in negative comments, inappropriate comments and spam that have occurred over the past several months since the site was updated and in particular since the site started to give away games from the Steam world. I truly believe that if we get lots of decent feedback about the games we get here, more developers will be happy to give away their games. Seeing lots of complaints instead of feedback about the game will not persuade developers to give their games away for free. So please bear this in mind when posting your comments. Negative feedback about the game is welcomed as that can also be very constructive for developers, however, complaining about the way the site is operating or problems about downloading or installing the games should be directed to the giveawayoftheday contact form which I've linked to HERE, alternatively, if the problem is game related and it is late in the day (I can't moderate 24 hours a day), please also post your issue in the forums where you may get a response from the community. Often, such problems are related to your computers set up. i.e. your security may block the installation (for example quite a few game giveaways I've installed have been blocked by my copy of Zemana Anti-malware suite) Also please read the moderation policy which can be found HERE and/or the FAQ's thread HERE

Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age

In Brief

A farm themed time management game in an Actic setting.

Suggestions:

Whether you like or dislike Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age please give some feedback about your opinion of the game, for example, what you liked or disliked about the game, and how it could be improved from your point of view. If you don't like this genre at all, please explain why. What improvements would change your opinion? There are thousands of subscribers to the game giveaway of the day every weekend which makes this an ideal forum for giving developers ideas as to what their consumers (i.e you) would like to see in a game. For example, you could suggest extra content such as better or more original mini games, or a level editor that you would like to see that would make it more appealing to you. Maybe you think the graphics are a little dated and are in need of re skinning, or maybe you've just had enough of the genre and want to see something different or something with more originality?

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game via MyPlayCity 24/7 HERE. You can get the whole Farm Frenzy collection via Steam for £7.49/$9.99 )it's on 50% off till Jan 2nd) HERE The pack includes Farm Frenzy, Farm Frenzy 2, Farm Frenzy: Pizza Party, Farm Frenzy 3, Farm Frenzy 3: American Pie, Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age, Farm Frenzy 3: Russian Roulette, Farm Frenzy: Gone Fishing, Farm Frenzy 3: Madagascar, Farm Frenzy: Ancient Rome, Farm Frenzy: Viking Heroes, Farm Frenzy 4. Or you can purchase most of the collection individually from between £2.99 to £5.24 (only 25% off). See the end of the review for details of other Farm Frenzy games you can gete for free.

Installation:

Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age giveaway package downloads to a 92.1 MB zip file that unzips to three files, (a setup.gcd security wrapper, the set up file and a read me). Those with multiple hard drives are able to save games on any drive they wish. The newly installed game is 93.7 MB in size. The game installs to the following path by default, but can be changed by the user if you prefer:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MyPlayCity.com\Farm Frenzy 3 - Ice Age

Four shortcuts are installed to the desktop. three of which can be safely deleted (Play Online Games, MyPlayCity Games and shortcuts to a free online game which vary each week). Also, if you don't like icons installed to the quick launch task bar, make sure you uncheck the box when the additional tasks window appears (after the Select Start Menu Folder window)

Introduction:

Help Scarlett build her own arctic farm in the exciting game Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age! Are you ready for a breath-taking adventure in the North Pole? You are to feed penguins, build plants, make flour and cakes. At the beginning of every level you will have a number of tasks to fulfill. The faster you cope with them, the more awards you get! Every now and then your farm will be attacked by the polar bears! They can steal your animals and products, so put the enemies in a cage and sell them in the nearest market. Build your own arctic farm and become a successful businessman in the game Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age!

Reference accessed HERE. Dec 25th 2016

If you have a problem installing or activating or getting Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age to work please visit the problems section, which I've now incorporated into the FAQ's thread, and which you can find HERE

The Game:

Whether you prefer the sunny beaches of Tropical Farm, or the icy landscapes of Farm Frenzy: Ice Age, one thing is certain – farming fans have no shortage of time management games to choose from. Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age is the third frantic game with the title "Farm Frenzy 3" to be released by Alawar, and it delivers much of what you’d expect from the series.

The original Farm Frenzy 3 had you traveling across the globe, while Farm Frenzy 3: American Pie had you farming in the USA with robots. You may be wondering to yourself, "Why is each game is being called Farm Frenzy 3 instead of Farm Frenzy 4 or 5?" The answer becomes apparent if you’ve played more than one game in the series. Each Farm Frenzy 3 game is a variant of the original, with the same game play mechanics and feel, yet a slightly different theme.

As you might have guessed by the name, Farm Frenzy: Ice Age follows Scarlet as she runs a frosty farm way up in the North Pole. There’s a surprise guest, but his jolly identity should be a no-brainer given the location. Like always, the story is light and doesn’t offer much in the way of details or explanations.

The game play follows the same familiar format as the other Farm Frenzy 3 games. You need to keep your well full in order to provide food for your animals to stay alive. Animals drop produce, like eggs and feathers, and these can be gathered and sold.

The graphics have undergone a complete overhaul to fit with the chilly theme, so you farm over a frozen pond instead of a green pasture. All of the animals are animated, so it’s fun to watch them waddle around the screen eating fish and amusing themselves. Since everything is Arctic-themed, you get to raise penguins, royal (colorful) penguins, walruses, and wooly mammoth. As usual, you can also buy cats to help gather produce, and dogs to chase away predators. Dogs don’t explode in this version, by the way…they just roll off the screen.

Polar bears pose a problem and will randomly attack and steal your livestock, but these can be captured with rapid mouse clicks and then sold for a profit. After the first few levels you will get more than one bear appearing at the same time. Until this has occured I'd advise not buying a second penguin, because you'll almost certainly lose one of your penguins which may stop you winning a gold or silver cup. Immediately after capturing your first bears, get yourself a second penquin, then sell the bears. Bears may be dressed up in funny ancy dress later in the game and can be sold for extra cash. For another cute surprise, pause your game and leave it running for a while, and see what happens.

You can use the items you’ve gathered to produce processed goods like cookies and cakes once you’ve bought the right upgrades, and additional goodies can be paid for and airlifted into the playing field to help you meet your targets. Most of these processed goods are the same as in Farm Frenzy 3, and include cookies, cakes, fancy feathers, clothing, and of course ice cream.

As in previous games, sometimes processed goods are required to make other processed goods, leading to complex chains. For example, feathers can be made into decorative feathers, which can then be made into fabric, which can then be sewn into clothes, which can then finally be used to dress bears. Don’t worry about having to remember all of that, since everything is introduced very slowly and becomes second nature with repetition.

Your goals vary by level, and you earn a higher score for beating levels faster. Everything is done with the click of your mouse, so as you’d expect, it can get quite frantic as you advance. The fast pace and quick multitasking is part of the big draw in Farm Frenzy 3, and I’m happy to report that Farm Frenzy: Ice Age is just as hectic as its predecessors, while being less complicated and more user friendly than Farm Frenzy: Pizza Party.

Useful Information and game tips:

Pause, Restart, and Game play Time: Clicking on the sled, the helicopter, or the goals will not affect your completion time. These will also stop the current game play, so you do not have to worry about accidents happening while you are looking through the warehouse, or the items available to buy on the helicopter.

You can click on the "Menu" button in the lower left at any time to pause the game; this will also not affect the game play time. This will bring up a list of several options, including Continue, Map, Main Menu, and Restart Level. Do not worry; if you click on the wrong one, a confirmation screen will follow.

I have noticed, however, that in all of the Farm Frenzy games, just as you are about to finish the level, the timer appears to add 1 second before the screen changes to show how many stars, etc., you have earned. This walkthrough takes the extra second into account, and the times indicated to get gold are the times shown on the completion screen.

Factory Upgrades: In this game, like American Pie, you will need to upgrade your factories to be able to start almost every level. You can go back and repeat levels to get more stars.

During game play, you can upgrade the factories even while they are making product. This is sometimes crucial and can save you a second or two that you need to make gold. Upgrading the factories makes them produce at a faster rate. Even though you may only have enough raw products to produce two items, upgrading the factory to be able to produce 3, 4, or 5 of the item will improve the production time of the two items.

Upgrade factories at the beginning of each level if you have enough stars regardless of whether they are currently producing or how many of the items you need to produce. The upgrades improve time. You can also click on the factories while they are producing to make them go faster. A bar will appear showing the green production rate, and a smaller bar that goes from light orange to red, based on your rate of clicking. If the red bar gets near the last bar before the top, and the factory itself is starting to turn red, it is almost maxed out, and only about 2 clicks from exploding. You do not want them to explode, so if they get to this level, just stop clicking on them for awhile, and the red bar will go back down. If they explode, you lose the product you were making, and have to buy the exploded factory all over from the beginning.

Upgrades for warehouse, sled, cat, dog, helicopter, and well: In Ice Age, you will have a sled instead of a sled to carry your wares to market. I like to get the cage upgraded as quickly as possible, because on some of the levels, you may need the bears before the dogs get to them. I personally don’t like to upgrade the dog right away, because in this version, the dogs don’t get stronger, there are more of them, and they don’t cage the bears for you, they destroy them. I also like to get the warehouse, sled, helicopter and cat upgraded quickly. The well upgrades can wait until the later levels where you will need more fish.

Map and Level Order: The map in this version can be very confusing at first, unless you have already played the American Pie version. At many of the intersections, upgrades will allow you to go to levels not in any specific order. For the purposes of this walkthrough, and so you can find the level you may need help with easily, I’ve written this with the levels in numerical order. You don’t have to follow the levels in order through the game to be able to complete it; you can go any direction at the intersections, provided you have the needed upgrades.

Mammoths, Hay, and Animals: This game introduces the mammoths, which eat hay, rather than fish. At any time you have mammoths and animals, be sure to have hay for the mammoths, and don’t forget to scatter fish for the animals. You buy the hay from the store on the helicopter. When it arrives, it will be placed randomly on the farm area. You cannot pick up the hay. The mammoths will go to the hay when they need it. The bears, however, can delete the hay if they run over it or land on it, so try to capture bears before they get your hay. If they do get the hay, be sure to replace it as quickly as possible.

Selling Products: Whenever you send the sled to sell your products, you want to look to see how much money you will need, and secondly, how full is your warehouse. My own "rule of thumb" is to send the products in descending order by how much they are worth. For example, cakes are worth $200 each, and cookies are worth $100 each, so I would sell the cakes first. Then sell the bears 1 at a time with each sled load. In general, keep the sled going back and forth with as full a load as possible for the maximum profit, while still getting the bears out of the warehouse.

Technique for Scattering the Fish: When scattering the fish, be sure to place the fish low on the screen, right on top of the warehouse and to the right of the farm area. This will keep your animals away from the bears, for the most part. The bears usually come down near the top and left of the farm area.

Their are optimum area's where you should place your fish. Check out the walkthrough for a screen capture of the best placement. The first bear has landed to the top left. You can see the shadow of the second bear that will fall in the middle. Although the penguin has wandered near the top of the screen, it will normally move to the right or will go back towards the fish. Get the bears that are closest to your animals first.

Be sure to scatter fish as needed to keep your animals alive. Fit scattering the fish in as you are comfortable with the "Farm Frenzy rhythm" for each level. For each level that needs animals purchased right away, I’ve found it easiest to buy the animals first, and then scatter fish. The extra few seconds may be the difference between silver and gold on some levels.

Starting a Level Over for Gold: Whenever a bear tosses an animal, simply restart the level. There are very few levels that you can achieve gold if an animal is missing, or you have to buy again. Even if there are no money goals, this can slow your production by a few seconds on some levels. There are some levels where gold is not affected by a few animals being tossed. I have indicated this in the walkthrough for those levels.

It can be very helpful when starting a level to take a good first look at everything you have, don’t have, and can purchase. Sometimes you can purchase items and do not have to buy the animals to make them. Then figure out your strategy for the level, and simply start over.

Getting Gold: Some levels have little to no time for error to get gold. On these levels, it is good to have a plan of what you are going to do before you start them. On these levels, and any others to get better time, you can start buying the animals, or clicking on the sled as soon as it has landed, or begin upgrading as soon as the sled, warehouse, and helicopter have landed; as soon as you click on start, as the buildings are falling to start the level.

There are also several levels where it is obviously easier to get gold when you have all of the building upgrades. This walkthrough is based on how to get the gold rankings without having to get all of the building upgrades first.

On some levels, you can make better time by having more animals than you have factory upgrades. There is sometimes a delay with the animals producing, and you may have to wait for the animals to produce for a short time while the factory is not running. On some levels, you need the factories producing at maximum speed. Therefore, you need enough animals producing enough products to keep the factories going. My own "rule of thumb" is to have one more animal than the factories’ production quantities. For example, if your Egg Powder plant produces 2 powdered eggs at a time, then you will want to have 3 penguins.

Endless Mode: This will be unlocked when you complete Level 45 in the Career Mode. In the Endless Mode, it is simply patience and getting the goals as quickly as possible that will get you through it. There will be more goals as you achieve the goals shown. You need stars and money to buy the buildings. You earn stars by achieving the goals and money by selling your wares as usual. You can click on the goals in the lower right of the screen to bring up a list of the current goals and how many stars you will achieve for them.

Edited reference accessed HERE. Originally reviewed by Lisa Haasbroek on Jan 6, 2010. Edited by Whiterabbit 25th Dec 2016.

Other Reviews, Videos a Slideshow and a Walkthrough:

You can see community reviews of Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age HERE and more information in the Big fish forums HERE

if you want to see some game play you can see some videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE (German). You can also see a slideshow of around 35 images HERE. The following walkthrough was written by Lisa Haasbroek and can help you achieve gold ranks, goals and awards. There are other ways to achieve these if you wish to figure out how to achive the best awards. You can access Lisa's walkthrough HERE

Conclusion:

Just like the other Farm Frenzy 3 titles, Ice Age has virtually endless replay value. You can aim for a challenging silver or gold score on each level, and replay levels as much as you’d like, plus there’s an endless mode for those who can’t get enough. Even if you play straight through without repeating anything, you’ll get at least a dozen hours of game play.

On the downside, even with a new theme, it’s still much the same as Farm Frenzy 3 and Farm Frenzy 3: American Pie. The graphics offer a bigger difference than what you’d find when comparing the earlier two, but the game play itself is otherwise nearly identical.

If you haven’t already played an earlier version of Farm Frenzy 3, then Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age is a fun, fast-paced time management game sure to please fans of the genre. Be aware though, as the title eludes, Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age is largely just Farm Frenzy 3 with snow.

The game has polished graphics and sound effects. Entertaining animations. Excellent pacing and challenge. Great length and as already said, endless replay value. On a more negative note the game is VERY similar to past Farm Frenzy 3 games, except it has a Arctic theme.

Final word, if you don't have any Farm Frenzy games, or only the first few, this is well worth getting. I beta tested up to Farm Frenzy 3: American Pie, and although I loved the first few (depsite not really liking Time Management games), I found later versions far too similar to enjoy them as much as the earlier versions, that said, it's still an excellent game that I highly recomend you download and install today. If you miss todays giveaway, you can still get the game via MyPlayCity, tohugh you do need to be careful when installing the game and make sure you uncheck the checkboxes unless you don't mind having your home page chqnged to MPC's home page, or having toolbars added to your internet browser and even having your browser provider changed.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank MyPlayCity for giving away Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age minus the usual MPC checkboxes and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games, in this case Steam keys. Have a wonderful Christmas folks. There are several games in the admin listings, but as yet none have been scheduled for boxing Day. I will add a note to my review if any are schduled later today.cIt's worth checking the site tomorrow just in case. I missed an £11 Steam game earlier ths month becasue I'd not bothered to check on the day. I'd checked the night beofre and hadn't seen any scheduled.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

The problems section that used to be posted here in the Game review is now included in the Game Discussion FAQ's thread; which you can find HERE.

I've updated the games section that used to be posted with the review. The thread is now called 'Weekly round up of game deals', formerly the games section of the weekly reviews. You can find the new thread (which I've posted in the sticky section of the game discussion forums to make it easier to find if you are perusing the game discussion forums) HERE.

If today's game was not to your liking, you may find other games either free or for less than the price of a cup of coffee (from your favorite coffee house) via the 'Weekly Roundup of Game Deals' thread which I've posted a link to above, or HERE.

The latest free game over on Origin is still the old classic Dungeon Keeper. You can get it HERE and see a couple of videos of game play HERE and HERE Please note that you do require the Origin game platform to be able to download and install the game.

Assassins Creed III is still available as part of Ubisofts 30th anniversary celebrations. Last weekends deals included all the games already given away since earlier this year, but it was time limited and has now ended. For Assassins Creed III (an open world medieval first person/third person action/adventure game you do require a free Ubisoft account and the free uPlay client installed to get the game, which you will find HERE.

You can get all of the franchise apart from American Pie from MPC, i.e. Farm Frenzy, Farm Frenzy 2, Farm Frenzy: Pizza Party, Farm Frenzy 3, Farm Frenzy 3: Madagascar, Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age, Farm Frenzy 3: Russian Roulette, Farm Frenzy 4Farm Frenzy: Ancient Rome, Farm Frenzy: Gone Fishing, Farm Frenzy: Viking Heroes.

You can also find over 70 other farm related games via MyPlayCity (not all are TM games) HERE. The only Farm Frenzy game not available via MPC is Farm Frenzy 3: American Pie, however, if you want to complete the set you can either buy the Farm Frenzy Collection that includes 12 titles via Steam; (Don't get the the Farm Frenzy Pack pack that only includes 5 of the titles and costs almost twice as much as the collection bundle). That said, you can download the game free from TooMkyGames HERE. You'll also find some of the above games as browser versions via Big Fish and other sites.

Finally, check out the Steam stores specials tab, you'll find thousands of games on sale ranging from 10% to 95% off, with 100's of games less than a dollar (£0.69p). The Steam Christmas sale Ends on the 2nd January.