Bandango
05-15-2009, 04:42 PM
Zombies ate my brains, but hey--zombies are known to do that. Plants have never shown any sign of sharing this most infamous of zombie craving, yet they’ve managed to eat my brains as well. In fact, both camps are fighting tooth and nail for the next bite and the few shreds of grey matter I have left are completely dedicated to the battle. I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m placing peashooters and replacing wall-nuts whenever I shut my eyes. I’m cutting down swathes of bucketheads and blowing up shambling bobsled teams in my sleep. In Plants vs. Zombies, the plants and zombies aren’t just fighting for control of my lawn, they’re fighting for every free second I have. I’m losing.
http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/pvz2.jpg
Or winning, depending on how you look at it. Plants vs. Zombies has surpassed my expectations in every way possible. At its heart it’s a tower defense game, a relatively young genre that has, until recently, only seen play in web browsers and user made mods. But to call Plants vs. Zombies a tower defense game is an oversimplification, which is ironic considering that one of the game’s major achievements is its simplification of the classic tower defense model. Anyone familiar with the genre knows the drill: place turrets and traps along a path to keep increasingly hardy enemies from reaching an end point. PvZ takes that idea and turns it on its head. The entire map is the path. A 9x5 grid makes the playing field and enemy zombies march down the five horizontal planes in search of brains. As gardener, it is your job to fend them off with a varied ecology of plant life. Production of these offensive and defensive plants is fueled by sunlight, which must be clicked on to collect. This sunlight is, of course, produced by sunflowers, and their defense is paramount. The whole system is pretty simple, but in action it’s absolutely captivating. Very rarely will you find yourself tapping your foot waiting for your next move.
As you progress through the adventure mode new plants are made available. After successfully completing a round, a new plant card is dropped. At the beginning of each round, you select seven of these cards to play. Card selection is crucial. Certain zombies can only be harmed by specific plants and certain stages have environmental constraints that can only be counteracted by one card or another. Also, some plant cards add bonuses or improve upon plants that have already been put into play. The synergy of your arsenal makes or breaks its effectiveness, and the amount of cards to choose from allows for dozens of different strategies. I’m sure everyone will play this game a little differently from each other. This diversity grants Plants vs. Zombies the depth that only endless experimentation can provide.
http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/pvz3.jpg
Infinite experimentation? Big deal. Pseudo RPG elements? Pshaw. Accessible and fun gameplay? So what? If all that doesn’t grab your attention, the screenshots will. This game is freaking adorable. Each unit is uniquely expressive. Everything in this game, zombie and plant alike, have their own endearing character. The wall-nuts, for example, wear a blank and stupid smile until they take damage. After enough chunks are bitten from their side, that smile turns to pitiful frown. It’s amazing what these touches of life add. The wall-nuts’ older brother, the tall-nut, bears a forceful mean-face. Once they’re dealt enough damage, they shed a single tear. It’s amazing. There are Michael Jackson Thriller zombies that call forth a cadre of backup dancers. There are roofer zombies who carry ladders that negate wall units. There are linebacker zombies who do what you’d imagine linebacker zombies would do. Much love went into each and every unit and it shows.
The only human in the game is Crazy Dave, and I capitalize crazy because he’s Craaay-zeee! On occasion he’s also funny, but he mostly just gives you advice on what to expect in the upcoming round. He’s also the shopkeeper. You’ll collect cash as you play and this cash can be used to buy new plants, additional card slots and assorted gear for the metagame. Unfortunately for me, this metagame has all the necessary ingredients for addictive gaming. Towards the end of Plants vs. Zombies, a deceptively named mode is unlocked. The Zen Garden, as it’s called, is a place for you to tend to your plants outside of zombie mayhem. During the endgame, different seedlings are dropped by slain opponents and transported back to your garden as sprouts. The initial hook here is that you must water and fertilize them to find out exactly what kind of plant you got. As they grow they start to produce money that you can spend on more items that further their growth. On top of that, different types of plants require different garden environments that must also be bought. It’s too much. This mode creates income but also demands further spending. It’s a vicious cycle. This morning one of my first thoughts was to ‘water my plants.’ Terrible! And to all you players out there who need to collect everything: beware! This Zen Garden will become your OCD garden, a reason to keep coming back.
http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/pvz4.jpg
So, the final question... should I buy this game? Yes. Yes you should. Any sort of gamer--casual, hardcore, middle-left-postcore--will find a reason to play and a reason to love. I hate to evaluate a game as if it was a simple product, but from that perspective you couldn’t find a better use for your twenty dollars.( Ten on Steam!) PvZ is simple, elegant, addictive and deep. It doesn’t get much better than this. We all know what it’s like to get hooked on some shoddy flash game that’s not really worth your time. Well this is just like that, except it is worth your time. The production values are through the roof. It exudes personality. There's a ton of minigames and extra modes after the main adventure. The carrot to keep you playing is dangled most expertly. I could go on. Part puzzle game, part strategy, and part RPG, Plants vs. Zombies has pretty much everything you could ask for. If you have twenty dollars, you should give it to Popcap.
http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/pvz2.jpg
Or winning, depending on how you look at it. Plants vs. Zombies has surpassed my expectations in every way possible. At its heart it’s a tower defense game, a relatively young genre that has, until recently, only seen play in web browsers and user made mods. But to call Plants vs. Zombies a tower defense game is an oversimplification, which is ironic considering that one of the game’s major achievements is its simplification of the classic tower defense model. Anyone familiar with the genre knows the drill: place turrets and traps along a path to keep increasingly hardy enemies from reaching an end point. PvZ takes that idea and turns it on its head. The entire map is the path. A 9x5 grid makes the playing field and enemy zombies march down the five horizontal planes in search of brains. As gardener, it is your job to fend them off with a varied ecology of plant life. Production of these offensive and defensive plants is fueled by sunlight, which must be clicked on to collect. This sunlight is, of course, produced by sunflowers, and their defense is paramount. The whole system is pretty simple, but in action it’s absolutely captivating. Very rarely will you find yourself tapping your foot waiting for your next move.
As you progress through the adventure mode new plants are made available. After successfully completing a round, a new plant card is dropped. At the beginning of each round, you select seven of these cards to play. Card selection is crucial. Certain zombies can only be harmed by specific plants and certain stages have environmental constraints that can only be counteracted by one card or another. Also, some plant cards add bonuses or improve upon plants that have already been put into play. The synergy of your arsenal makes or breaks its effectiveness, and the amount of cards to choose from allows for dozens of different strategies. I’m sure everyone will play this game a little differently from each other. This diversity grants Plants vs. Zombies the depth that only endless experimentation can provide.
http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/pvz3.jpg
Infinite experimentation? Big deal. Pseudo RPG elements? Pshaw. Accessible and fun gameplay? So what? If all that doesn’t grab your attention, the screenshots will. This game is freaking adorable. Each unit is uniquely expressive. Everything in this game, zombie and plant alike, have their own endearing character. The wall-nuts, for example, wear a blank and stupid smile until they take damage. After enough chunks are bitten from their side, that smile turns to pitiful frown. It’s amazing what these touches of life add. The wall-nuts’ older brother, the tall-nut, bears a forceful mean-face. Once they’re dealt enough damage, they shed a single tear. It’s amazing. There are Michael Jackson Thriller zombies that call forth a cadre of backup dancers. There are roofer zombies who carry ladders that negate wall units. There are linebacker zombies who do what you’d imagine linebacker zombies would do. Much love went into each and every unit and it shows.
The only human in the game is Crazy Dave, and I capitalize crazy because he’s Craaay-zeee! On occasion he’s also funny, but he mostly just gives you advice on what to expect in the upcoming round. He’s also the shopkeeper. You’ll collect cash as you play and this cash can be used to buy new plants, additional card slots and assorted gear for the metagame. Unfortunately for me, this metagame has all the necessary ingredients for addictive gaming. Towards the end of Plants vs. Zombies, a deceptively named mode is unlocked. The Zen Garden, as it’s called, is a place for you to tend to your plants outside of zombie mayhem. During the endgame, different seedlings are dropped by slain opponents and transported back to your garden as sprouts. The initial hook here is that you must water and fertilize them to find out exactly what kind of plant you got. As they grow they start to produce money that you can spend on more items that further their growth. On top of that, different types of plants require different garden environments that must also be bought. It’s too much. This mode creates income but also demands further spending. It’s a vicious cycle. This morning one of my first thoughts was to ‘water my plants.’ Terrible! And to all you players out there who need to collect everything: beware! This Zen Garden will become your OCD garden, a reason to keep coming back.
http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/pvz4.jpg
So, the final question... should I buy this game? Yes. Yes you should. Any sort of gamer--casual, hardcore, middle-left-postcore--will find a reason to play and a reason to love. I hate to evaluate a game as if it was a simple product, but from that perspective you couldn’t find a better use for your twenty dollars.( Ten on Steam!) PvZ is simple, elegant, addictive and deep. It doesn’t get much better than this. We all know what it’s like to get hooked on some shoddy flash game that’s not really worth your time. Well this is just like that, except it is worth your time. The production values are through the roof. It exudes personality. There's a ton of minigames and extra modes after the main adventure. The carrot to keep you playing is dangled most expertly. I could go on. Part puzzle game, part strategy, and part RPG, Plants vs. Zombies has pretty much everything you could ask for. If you have twenty dollars, you should give it to Popcap.