Plants vs Zombies - Shotguns down, shovels up

Who needs shotguns when just a few plat seeds, dirt, and water will provide your home with the ultimate defense against hoards of brain craving zombies? The people at Pop Cap are helping to re-educate everyone who has ever seen a zombie movie with Plants vs Zombies. It is not a tower defense game sort of the same way that Vanguard Storm isn’t a tower defense game. You have a house with a front yard, back yard, and a roof. Zombies want to come in and eat your brains, and your superior gardening skills have to keep them out. To do this, you are given several different types of plants to place across your lawn which attack the approaching hoard of zombies. All the while you need to collect sunlight which is the game’s commodity that allows you to purchase more plants or other items you receive as a line of defense.

The game does a good job of making you think and adjust your strategy. During the night the isn’t any sunshine so you have to plant a certain type of mushroom which gives you sunlight quicker than your average sunflower, but will only give you a small amount at first before maturing. When you fight on the roof you can’t use normal pea shooter plants because of the shape of the roof so you have to manage the smaller spacing with catapult plants. The many types of zombies you are facing must also be addressed or your entire line of defense could get wiped out in one wave. There are also several mini-games that help you get more money to buy power-ups and new types of plants of your crazy next door neighbor. You even get to play as the zombies on one of them. Pop Cap has a great since of humor and it really shows in this game as if the dancing zombie (straight out of the Thriller video) who calls up backup dancers from the dead wasn’t enough, there are also little tidbits that make you snicker like the message you get when you click on help from the main menu.

For a $20 PC game(or $10 if you can catch a good Steam sell), it packs a lot of fun and has great replay value as there is no way you’ll figure out how to optimally use every plant on your first try through it. The many levels are fun little puzzles and more challenging than they appear at first glance. The mini-games will also have you scratching your head as to how to solve them. It shows that the folks who brought us Peggle have way more to offer. I can’t wait for a portable version.

Grade B+
Meta 87