Oh, zombies. Will you ever stop bringing me joy?
Probably, when you rise up and kill us all.
But until then, I’ll enjoy mowing you down in video games. And even when it becomes reality I’ll enjoy shooting you from long range, and hopefully I’ll be aided by plants then too, because it turns out they can be better than shotguns.
Plants Vs. Zombies is the newest entry to the PopCap catalog of casual-friendly hardcore-loved games. It’s a fresh take on the very very crowded tower defense genre, where instead of the standard placing defenses alongside a path travelled single file by enemies, defenses are put directly in the way of the invading zombies who generally stick to one of up to six paths. Plants generally need to be in the same line to be effective, but later plants can reach multiple rows, and move zombies into other lanes.
Instead of generating resources between waves, as is fairly standard, players occasionally get a free boost of randomly generated sun, but more often have to plant flowers or mushrooms which create the resource used for just about everything. Sunflowers and mushrooms create solar energy at a regular rate, which is used to buy more plants to fend the zombies off. Naturally the energy generating plants can’t do it themselves, and the stronger plants will require more solar power (and often they’ve a long recharge time before another can be planted). There’s a tradeoff between wide coverage with more plants to chew up before zombies reach the end or powerful but (mostly) vulnerable plants. Can you afford to put the big plant in one row without losing another? Should you sacrifice one row to fortify another?
For a casual defense game, Plants Vs. Zombies pushes players into some very hard decisions, particularly at night (when sun is rare but special mushrooms are powerful allies) or with special terrain. It also changes things up with a mini-game break or a new area to defend just when it needs to in the story mode. Areas get progressively more challenging, from terrain, zombies (some of which who’ve got abilities that will force rapid changes to your plan), and environmental circumstances, but they’re always fun, even with a hard learning curve occasionally as new zombies show up, with new abilities that will absolutely wreck your shit if you aren’t prepared for them.
And even when they do, or don’t, damn is it fun and intense to get through. At marked points on a timer (so you always know how far you are from the end), zombies will come in a big wave. Usually you have time to prepare if you do it smartly and have plenty of energy ready, but even then certain zombies can make it a crapshoot and a desperate race to remove and replace plants with an appropriate counter-measure.
Plants Vs. Zombies has a crisp visual style, with that tendency toward simple shaded graphics PopCap loves to use. Cute dancing flowers, cute but clearly less than savory zombies. Everything has a very smooth motion to it, but occasionally it seems to become disjointed when pieces of zombies fall off. Minor complaint, though, sometimes things just seem too independant, like ther’s no real contact going on. Perhaps it’s just things falling slightly out of sync.
Of course, this is the kind of game where missing something can get a player’s brain eaten, and it’s essential to mention how clearly the presentation informs players of the situation. Different sounds announce different zombies, they announce incoming waves, they announce certain impacts and special effects even. Normally it would be incredibly easy for visual clutter to overcome, but zombies have unique enough shapes between types and are generally never very overlapped, so you can see what’s going on. The game’s angle is somewhere around a 3/4 overhead, and the lanes are each clearly visible and separated by alternating grass colors, which also marks in a subtle checkerboard pattern where plants can be placed as well as helping players get a better handle on how fast the danger is approaching.
The sense of humor and fun shines through extraordinarily well through the visuals and audio as well, of course. Dancing sunflowers, Michael Jackson zombies, screen door shields, and corn plants that occasionally throw butter can’t be described in any way as serious, nor can the way zombie arms and heads pop off after a good hit, and give an easy idea of how much health one has left. Great, GREAT visual feedback. And knowing the producer sacrificed his head by being pelted repeatedly with butter to get the sound right just makes it better. True story. There was no sound good enough, he went into foley, and got pelted with butter. Apparently, it’s VERY hard to wash from one’s hair.
Great background music sets it off, with an oddly cheery theme in its ominousness, but it wouldn’t be fitting any other way. And of course, while there’s not much, the writing that IS present is spectacular, generally in the form of Crazy Dave’s rantings, or notes from the zombies. There’s a reliance on visual humor more than the normal PopCap outing, but that’s far from a complaint when it’s so well done.
As usual, bonuses abount. Minigames abound for players who’ve finished the main story mode, there’s a zen garden, survival modes, and all sorts of unique challenges to work through. Plus, a significant amount of plant upgrades, special items, and general shenanigans to purchase in Crazy Dave’s shop with coins collected from levels and the zen garden. And rakes! Everyone loves when a zombie dies by stepping on a rake, afterall.
PvZ is definitely more of a challenge and much more active than the usual casual game. Instead of the turn based nature of Bejeweled or Peggle, zombies are just sent at you constantly in most modes. It’s ideal for a quick action fix, but lends itself to accidental marathons all too well. That “Just one round of survival” mentality NEVER stays there. The perpetual “one more turn” of a great game is present here, but is that really a surprise?
Plants Vs Zombies, completely unsurprisingly, gets 5 stars. It starts off a little slow, but picks up rapidly and the value for the price is excellent. It’s easy to get into, hard to put down, superbly polished. And buttering zombies never gets old.
