Plants vs. Zombies!!! Review

Zombies are coming and they want your delicious brains! But you're just a stay at home gardener, whatever will you do? Well, there's more than one way to send a zombie back to the grave and your weapons of choice this time are a bit more unexpected...



At the core, plants vs. zombies is a tower defense game. You are given a grid style map with specific spots to plant your "guns" and you must gather resource by grabbing sunlight as it falls from the sky as well as growing it in your sunflower plants. The fundamental differences from most tower defense clones is that there isn't a set route that's mapped out for the zombies before hand, nor is there a way to divert the zombies into your own path crafted by tower placement. The zombies simply spawn on the right side of the map (opposite your house) and shamble there way to your door. Then can appear in up to 6 lanes of the yard and you must have something to destroy them before they make it all the way to the left side or your tasty brains will be devoured. Your weapons of choice are all plants, and range from peashooters to watermelon catapults (and everything else in between). I don't want to sell short the wide array of plants you get however, since there are so many that aren't just simply about shooting or slowing the zombies. Plenty of mechanics get figured into the game that require the use a plant that clears gravestones, or absorbs metal objects. There's so many useful plants that even with 9 slots for seeds you can find your self a bit distressed of which ones to bring along.



As I mentioned earlier this is simply the core style of gameplay. As you work your way thru the adventure mode of the game you will be given, in steady bursts, new plants for your arsenal and you must choose which seed packs to bring into battle. Then every 5th level of an episode you will be challenged with a mini-game, the first being a bowling game with your Wall-nuts. Where you are given a steady stream of nuts and must bowl over as many zombies as you can and get massive combos. Then with every 10th level, the end of each episodes, you are given a more or less "boss scenario" where a massive amount of zombies rush your house and you are given a conveyor belt of plants to grab from and must hold out the house til they're all gone. I was quite partial to these points in the game since you didn't have muddle with the sunlight resource anymore and could focus all your land on attacking plants which results in some heavy fire power and strategy with the planets given to you, about how to take down large groups of zombies.

The adventure mode to the game consists of 4 episodes, in four locales around your house. With each level (and also time of day) can effect which plants are available or useful at all. Upon completing more of the adventure content you are given the options to play mini-games and puzzle levels crafted around the main game but with crazy objectives (like "Beghouled" a bejeweled clone about shooting zombies while matching groups of 3 plants to get sunlight). There is also a shop that opens up owned by your neighbor Crazy Dave. Here you can buy upgrades to your plants, more slots for your seeds and other assorted defenses against the undead.

Having completed about 85% of all the content of the game (all adventure and about 25 of the 36 puzzle/minigames) I can definitely give this game a resounding recommendation to anyone. There's so much fun packed into this package, and even if you're not a super tower defense buff there's plenty of other things here to keep you happy. The game is worth buying simply to read all the crazy plant and zombie "flavor text" written out in your almanac. The game is 10 bucks on steam right now and 20 on popcap's official site. I believe you can grab a demo or trial version from Popcap to see if you like it first, but for the price I don't think its truly necessary since you won't be able to keep your progress from the demo. If you aren't sold yet, then I have two more words for your... ZOMBIE... DOLPHINS. That is all.

EDIT: There is a steam demo available too and you can transfer your progress over if you decide to buy the game afterwords. Also there are 6 episodes I miss counted since I didn't think the tutorial section actually counted as a level and that there was a night version of the final stage. Those 6 episodes are made up for 10 levels each.



-Slayzer