"Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense video game developed and originally published by PopCap Games for Microsoft Windows and OS X. The game involves a homeowner using a variety of different plants to prevent an army of zombies from entering their house and "eating their brains"."
- Wikipedia on Plants vs. Zombies
What do I expect from the game?
Being such a popular and accessible game, Plants vs. Zombies is a game that it is difficult not to be aware of to some degree, so I have seen and read a bit about it and have a good idea of what to expect. It is a 2D tower defence game where the "towers" are various different plants and the advancing enemies are zombies. It seems to be fairly simple, though I'm sure great effort has been made to make it a varied game with a long lifespan. I like the look of the art style. I expect it to be a charming, casual, and fast-paced tower defence game.
First Impressions - What did I think of the game in its first few minutes?
The start screen is instantly colourful and visually appealing, and there is a lot to look at. The front end is equally colourful and has diegetic options. When starting a new game, the game's title is briefly shown over a clip of a rather busy level with many different plant and enemy types. This was a smart move by the developers, as the first few levels, in which you will learn the basics with only starter plants and enemies, will be less chaotic and might not hook the player. By showing how the game can look later on, it gives the player a hint of things to come and makes them more likely to see the early game through.
The first level sees the player learning the basics of placing plants and the structure of the game, with starting with just one plant type and one lane and slowly adding more. By level 3, you have 4 plant types and all 5 lanes open. It feels a bit slow to get going and there wasn't much of a sense of danger in the early levels, though this is understandable as the player should know what they're doing before being overly challenged.
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| Level 1 |
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| Level 2 |
At the end of level 3, I unlocked a shovel that can be used to dig up plants to clear space, and a character called Crazy Dave appeared to tell me about how to use it. He has a beard, a Homer Simpson-esque outfit and a pan on his head and talks gibberish. This guy was instantly charming. To see a human character after only having seen plants and zombies until now added something of a human interest to the game and made it easier to connect with.
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| Crazy Dave |
I dug up some plants at Crazy Dave's request, and he introduced me to the bowling game mode which involves bowling walnuts at advancing zombies and was pretty fun. By the next level, I had unlocked a decent arsenal of plants and the shovel. New enemy types had begun to appear and the game felt like it was properly under way.
What do I like? What does it do well?
I have plenty of good things to say about Plants vs. Zombies. It is pretty much exactly how I expected it. That is to say, it is a charming tower defence game that is simple, but still varied and offers plenty of content. The overall aesthetic and art style is perhaps its most immediately appealing feature. It is full of colour and nicely designed anthropomorphic plants that all have a lot of character. The UI, menus and levels are all consistent in their art style and this makes for a very nice looking game overall. The audio and music are good and suit the game well.
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| The game features an "Suburban Almanac" of information on plants and zombies. |
The gameplay is pretty solid, with a reasonable learning curve, pace and variety. It starts out a little bit slow while the player is learning the ropes, but soon enough you have a wide variety of plants and face different enemies. There are also different game modes thrown into the mix every now and then which keep the player on their toes. The pace at which things are unlocked and new challenges appear is nicely balanced in a way that keeps the game interesting and encourages extended play. This is a characteristic of a mobile or PC app-style game, which, of course, Plants vs. Zombies started life as.
The gameplay is perhaps not quite as frantic and chaotic as I had expected to begin with, but I only played for a few hours, so I imagine it gets more chaotic later on. The structure of rounds and core gameplay systems are easy to grasp. Again, this is probably thanks to its roots as a PC app-style game, which are carefully designed to be accessible to a wide audience.
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| The game gets more colourful and interesting with each round. |
One of the game's biggest strengths is its amount of content, regular rewards and incentive to keep playing. Unlocks include new plant types, new locales, and new enemies to add more colour and gameplay to the mix.
This week also saw a Spontaneous Sunday first: two player! I roped my girlfriend, Chloe, into playing two player with me. Plants vs. Zombies features some new game modes including co-op in which both players fend of the zombies with each player placing different plants, and vs. mode in which one player defends as the plants and the other attacks as the zombies. The addition of these multiplayer modes adds so much more variety of gameplay and longevity to the game. It's also an example of how the developers added to the game's original mobile iteration to make it suit the Xbox Arcade platform.
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| Co-Op Mode. |
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| Additional game-modes. |
What don't I like?
I don't have many negative things to say about Plants vs. Zombies, though one negative point is that it doesn't seem to "introduce itself" well. The gameplay seems a bit too immediate. The addition of a short cutscene before a new game would make the start of the game seem more grounded. Or maybe Crazy Dave could be visible on the front end.Another very minor negative is that the music becomes repetitive after an hour or two of playing.
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| Night-time levels see new plant types and a different approach to play. |
Final Thoughts
Overall, Plants vs. Zombies is a very good game and its clear to see how it has established so much popularity with critics and players, and how it has gone on to be released on so many platforms. Its got a nice style, and is quick, rewarding and accessible. The aesthetic, gameplay and lore of the game are all well thought-out.
It may be a bit too casual of game for my taste, and as far as tower-defence games go, World of Van Helsing: Deathtrap is more my speed, but I would happily play Plants vs. Zombies again in the future.
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