Plants vs. Zombies

Plants vs. Zombies: A Busy Gamer 5 of 5

Plants vs. Zombies: A Busy Gamer 5 of 5

First Glance:
A new take on the tower defense sub-genre, pitting some uncommon plants against brain hungry zombies.

The Short Story:
Grow a garden of destruction to fend off hordes of ghoulish undead. The further into the game you get, the more destructive the plant life becomes but the zombies are no slouches either. You’ll come up against some pretty unique, and tough, versions of the undead in PopCap’s Plants vs. Zombies.

The Score:
PopCap has always been good at creating addictive, easy to learn, Busy Gamer friendly games but I have to say that they’ve outdone themselves with Plants vs. Zombies. Quick rounds are easy to get in, it’s easy to learn as you play through the adventure mode, and exiting to the main menu at any time automatically saves the game for you allowing you to pick up wherever you left off last. Plants vs. Zombies earns itself a flowery, yet spooky, 5 on the Busy Gamer scale.

Body of review:
I’ve always had something of a soft spot for PopCap games. I can’t even count the number of hours I spent playing Bookworm, Chuzzle, or Peggle. But even with that soft spot, I would have to say I was caught off guard by the addictive nature of Plants vs. Zombies.

On the surface, it’s a “tower defense” game, a structured area where you have a limited amount of space to build your defenses to fend off the hordes of brain hungry zombies. Yeah, yeah, everybody is doing games with zombies, I know. Did I mention that the area you’re defending is your own yard and that you’re doing it with some capably destructive, and amusing, plant life? It all adds to this game’s allure and is only a part of what makes it unique.

You begin the game with a meager Peashooter, which will be the root, pardon the pun, of your defense as you start off. This plant… well, it shoots peas. At zombies. Make fun if you must but in the beginning, it’s this bad boy that keeps your brain in your head and the zombies off your lawn. As you progress through the levels, the “Bloom and Doom Seed Co.” provides you with a variety of plants, both defensive and offensive in nature. You could even say they were your “Shock and Lawn” weapon provider… Go ahead, I’ll let that one sink in for a while.

"Shock and Lawn"... Get it???

"Shock and Lawn"... Get it??? Never mind.

The resources you gather to grow your plants (sunlight, of course) can be obtained as it falls from the sky during the daylight levels but as night falls, you have to be sure to grow sunflowers or sun-shrooms (a night time version of the sunflower, try to keep up) to be sure to provide a steady supply of sun to fuel your plant growing needs. Due to the limited space on your lawn, you’ll often find yourself juggling between enough room for defenses and resource producing plants but that’s all part of the challenge.

You’ll defend the front lawn, the back lawn, and even your roof from the advancing horde in the adventure mode with each locale requiring a slightly different style of play. Your roof has to have planters for each plant you wish to grow which, strangely, consumes resources (read the description of the planter in the Almanac for a quick chuckle). And you’ll also defend the lawns through day and night cycles which will have you choosing between your day and night faring plants.

Shortly into your adventure, your virtual neighbor, “Crazy” Dave shows up to offer advice. Unfortunately, he’s crazy, willing to admit he’s crazy, and you have to wonder how much you can actually trust someone who wears a pot on his head. Fortunately, he proves to be much more useful as a merchant later on in the game.

Dave has...issues.

Dave has...issues.

Many players will find that the first playthough of the adventure mode serves mostly as a tutorial. It’s the repeated playthroughs, the minigames, the puzzle modes, and the survival modes where the main challenges, and the true value of the game, lie. Beating each of the additional modes results in additional challenges which further increase the replay value of the game.

The Busy Gamer will have to be careful of this game. It’s easy to lose track of time as you grow your garden of doom. Minutes can turn into hours if you’re not careful as you try to beat just one more level. Fortunately, the very useful, very easy save feature makes it a snap to pick up where you left off. Need to be somewhere? No problem. Exit to the main menu and your game is automatically saved. Even if you play a different mode, you can pick right back up where you left off on the adventure mode you were playing until two in the morning.

I imagine there will be many out there who end up missing out on this game because the premise doesn’t sound attractive to them. Their loss. Created with a clever wit, addictive gameplay, and an attractive price tag, Plants vs. Zombies is easily one of the best games I have had the pleasure of sitting down with in a very long time.

Gritskrieg – End of Line

Posted By Gritskrieg

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