Publisher: PopCap Games
Price: $4.99
As tower defense games go, there are a dime a dozen. The real treat is finding one amongst the throng that does the genre justice, either by an intriguing game mechanism, a flashy visual style, or in the better games, a little bit of both. In recent history, PopCap Games’ Plants vs. Zombies has taken the banner as one of the best tower defense games. It’s visual presentation is superb, it’s game mechanic addicting. It has zombies. All of that and a layer of charm that wins you over. PvZ is a huge reason to feel good about gaming this week on WP7. Microsoft might be giving a huge amount of hype about next week’s release of Angry Birds, but in my opinion, the best game of summer has just arrived.
The zombies are coming and it’s up to you and your green thumb to stop the advancing hoard of undead, slowly shuffling themselves towards you for a tasty bite of your brain.
Gameplay
When it comes to Plants vs. Zombies you either fall into two camps: the ones that played it before, and the ones that are brand new to it. If you’re brand new to PvZ, I envy you. It’s always great to experience a fresh, new game for the first time, and one that has a great pedigree as this one. Previously, I’ve played PvZ in its Xbox Live iteration, so I have a little bit of knowledge and expectations of what’s to come. Even then, I still bought the darn game even though in its translation from the Xbox360 down to WP7, PvZ has lost a couple of features along the way, it’s just that good.
Not a traditional tower defense game, PvZ instead pits you on a six-lane grid which you populate with the plants that will help you ward off the undead. Each plant requires a certain amount of sunshine, a.k.a. money, that is collected either when it drops down from the sky, or is created by certain specific generating plants. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock new plants for you to utilize against the ever changing roster of zombies out to get you. The zombies you encounter will also evolve and have different attributes that will make you think about the plant selections you choose at the beginning of each level. The real crux of the matter is that you always have limitations on which plants to choose based on the types of zombies that you’ll encounter. See, you are given a few slots to choose which plants you want to take into battle. Choosing the right plants that can eliminate the right zombies will help you achieve victory, but it’s a careful balance between the offensive type of plants versus the defensive types and the generating sunshine types. Pull too much from away from one or the other and the zombies will overtake your defenses.
Luckily, along the way you can purchase plant slots, new types of plants, or upgrades to current plants. It’s a good degree of customization that you’ll open up midway through the game, which then adds another layer to the gameplay. You’ll need all the help that you can get, though, as PvZ will slowly ramp up its difficulty as you go along. The initial stages are pretty easy, but even then a mental lapse can make it a tough going. Definitely, you’ll need to stay focused and understand that winning each stage is really about balancing your sunshine to slowly ramp up your offensive attack and strengthening your defenses. It’s a great game that never truly is unfair to you because of its difficulty, but rather it ratchets up nicely, always giving you something new to do in each level, but never punishing you into submission.
The great thing about having this game on this platform is that the style actually suits the control input. Having a touch screen makes this a much quicker and enjoyable experience. Having played the 360 version, using a controller to navigate around the screen was good, but not exactly ideal. Having a finger and moving the pieces onscreen is way better, and much more intuitive. Out of the two, I’d take this version over the 360, just on the sheer ease of use.
Graphics, Music, Presentation
Jaw dropping pretty. I have never seen a game look this good on WP7. Get the trial version and look for yourself, it makes ilomilo look a little tame. The visuals don’t disappoint and just makes this game a treat to play, and of course that PopCap charm is permeated through out the campaign. The art style is endearing and it even makes the zombies look like likeable creatures that you wouldn’t mind having in your own backyard. Add to that the whimsical music, and Crazy Dave, and you have yourself an enjoyable experience.
The combination of excellent gameplay and playful visuals keeps you playing well into the night. It’s an addictive combination, one that will surely drain many phone batteries for a few months. The only downside is that after a few levels, the combination of such creatures, plants, projectiles and effects will undoubtedly slow down the framerate.
This is where PvZ is flawed, unwanted for sure, but nevertheless there. It’s framerate can’t keep up with the massive amounts of action being thrown at the screen. It doesn’t break down mind you, but when the huge amount of enemies start swarming around in later levels, you will definitely see a dip in framerate, enough that it can totally pull you out of the goodness of it all. Luckily it isn’t present enough to not warrant a purchase of the game, but just know that in the later levels, particularly the rooftop section, you’ll notice a framerate drop.
Still, don’t be discouraged. The game is solid for the most part, and a great game at that.
Achievements, Extras, Etc.
On the achievements side, the best one to obtain is the Good Morning achievement. This challenge pits you on a day level, but you’re only allowed to fight the zombies with nighttime mushrooms and coffee beans to wake them up. It’s only 10g’s, but well the effort.
As for extras, you have a few mini-games, and friends leaderboards. There is a little humor along the menus and even a nice surprise in the achievements list if you’re patient enough and if you know where to look.
To be honest, the actual campaign is the star of the show, so extras aren’t really needed. There are missing features from its 360 brethren. No multiplayer and couch co-op to name a few. There is also no zen garden at all, although I don’t know how much people will miss that option.
In Closing…
It’s Plants vs. Zombies. That should be reason enough to purchase this. The game is amongst the best visually and gameplay wise, and there is enough meat in the camping that its $4.99 can be justified (yes, even though it’s only $2.99 on the iOS marketplace). The tower defense genre has been overrun with mediocrity, but luckily PvZ is here to right the ship, if only momentarily. Addictive, and charming, you cannot go wrong with PvZ, and at least for the next week, we have something to pass the time until that other must have game comes along.
