Plants vs. Zombies (Video Game Review)

Video Game Review
Plants vs. Zombies
PC/Windows
2009
Developer: PopCap Games
Publisher: PopCap Games

If there has been a genre that has gone past the fad phase and now has hit the overkill phase, tower defence games is that genre. These types of games are everywhere and if you’re one of those that needs to justify their iPhone/iTouch purchase by saying it’s also a games platform, there’s a tower defence game released every week for the platform it seems. Plants vs. Zombies breaks the mold by offering something different although it is plagued by low difficulty and the extra crap that PopCap felt necessary to throw in to add value to the game. Even though it’s easy, it will still suck hours away from even a hardcore gamer.

The concept is wacky but simple. Zombies are after you in your house and you need to plant plants in your yard to defend yourself. The action takes place on a grid and flows horizontally. Zombies come from one side of the ‘yard’ (screen) and try to make it to the other. You do have an arsenal of some tough plants to protect you. Peashooters fire peas at the zombies and walnuts act as blockades. You gain access to new plants as you progress through the game with stronger firepower or other methods to hold off the undead. You can’t plant as many plants as you want at any given time. You need to have enough sunlight that corresponds to how much each plant needs to start growing. Sunshine either comes from the sky or you can get it from planting sunflowers and collecting the sun they produce. Planting sunflowers is necessary during the nighttime levels since there is no sun out and therefore no sunlight to harness. You complete the level when you defeat all the zombie waves.

The game does change things up a bit as you progress. Each section of the game has ten levels. The fifth and tenth level in each section offers special challenges that deviate from the normal gameplay such as forcing you to pick up random plants from a scrolling display to place and defend your turf. They’re pleasant diversions from the regular game. Also, each section modifies the playing field slightly such as adding a pool (which makes it impossible to put any plants down without placing lily pads first) or moving the battlefield from your lawn to your roof (and having to deal with angles and trajectory).

The major downfall for this game is the lack of difficulty. It won’t take most players long to develop a system that will stop all the invading hordes no matter the situation. Once the player finds their rhythm, it will take either a total lack of concentration or falling asleep at the computer for the game over screen to appear. The game does increase in difficulty after completing the story mode the first time and playing through a second time by selecting several plants for you prior to starting a level but it doesn’t matter since depending on one’s formula, you might only really need four or five specific plants (or suitable substitutes) to breeze through the levels. It becomes more an exercise in collecting more objects and bonuses than a challenge.

Which brings up all the mini-games and challenges. They’re fun although not all that appealing. Most will play them to gain more rewards in the game but most of the extras feel unsubstantial. There are a couple of clever mini-games that are spoofs on other games like Portal but feel lame more than anything. The Zen Garden mode is dumb and only serves to entice people to play the game more so they can do more things in the garden which seems to serve only to unlock all the achievements. There is no skill involved in that mode as the plants tell you what you need to do (as in they’ll tell you they need to be watered); and you do it. After the plants are fully grown, you can sell them for items at a shop that consists of items to maintain your garden. However, the shop also does sell special plants to be used in the game and other bonus items for in-game use.

When it comes down to it though, PopCap’s Plants vs. Zombies is fun and addicting. There may be more challenging or flashier games in the genre but maybe it’s because of its simplicity that it hooks you and becomes such a sinkhole of time. There are times when you’ll be thinking to yourself in the middle of a level that you could be doing something better with your time but when you finally complete the round, you reason with yourself that you have time for just one more level.

☆☆☆☆