Plants vs Zombies (PC/Mac)

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There are zombies on your lawn. What are you gonna do about it? Set out some plants, of course!
Those pesky zombies are at it again. They’re shuffling across your yard, intent on eating your brains. Luckily, nobody hates zombies more than the plants around your house. They’ve taken it upon themselves to protect your home from an endless assault of the undead.
PopCap is the undisputed king of addictive casual games. Bejeweled has been cloned more times than you can count, and other games such as Peggle and Zuma are free-time vampires. Plants vs Zombies is a fairly simple concept on the surface, but the title also has more depth than you might expect at first glance.

Plants vs Zombies is an example of a tower-defense game where you place a bunch of offensive and defensive “towers” in a limited area in order to defend your base from an onslaught of enemies of differing types. Each variety of plant has a different skill to bring to the strategic drawing board, but nothing comes for free. Each plant has an associated cost for placing it on your lawn, measured in “sunshine”. You have to continuously gather enough sun to pay for all the flora you wish to plant. In addition to the initial purchase cost, each type of plant has a set recharge time before you can place another one. In general, cheaper plants recharge much faster than more powerful, expensive plants. Your yard is divided into a grid with a limited number of spaces in which to place plants. The zombies will shuffle towards your house in one of five different lanes, and your plants will only attack zombies within their range, which usually means they must occupy the same lane.

Tower defense games are all about finding the balance between different types of defenses in order to repel differing enemies. Plants vs Zombies offers up a fairly large roster of pesky zombies to defend against. Apart from the generic type, there are zombies with bolstered defense, zombies with extra speed, zombies with excess strength, and zombies with a host of other special traits. As large as the roster of zombies is, it still pales in comparison to the list of plants that becomes available over the course of the game. There are more than enough kinds of plants to defend against every type of zombie, day or night. Some plants can only be used during the day, while others, such as mushrooms, are nocturnal.
So how can a bunch of plants stop all those zombies from entering your house and eating your brains?

Sunflowers are used to generate sunshine, which also randomly falls from the sky during the day. If you don’t take the time to gather all the sun that you can, you won’t be able to build enough defenses. You start out with a basic arsenal including Wall-nuts to stop the zombies in their tracks and Peashooters to take them down. Over time, the number of available plants becomes rather large, and you must choose which of them you will take into battle for each level. My personal favorite plant type is the Kernel-Pult that lobs kernels of corn and slabs of butter.
The zombie horde has several tricks to try and make it across your lawn. Normal zombies merely shuffle forwards, but other types are a little more devious. Pole Vaulting Zombie can jump over the first plant he comes to, and Newspaper Zombie gets really angry and charges across the yard when you destroy his paper. The Dancing Zombie, which resembles a certain pop star, is my favorite.

If this were all that Plants vs Zombies had to offer, it would be a pretty solid game. However PopCap has stuffed this thing to the gills with a goofy sense of humor and more extras than you could shake a severed limb at. Each character in the game has a cartoony feel from the way they look to the way they move. Guiding you through the game periodically is Crazy Dave who wears a pan on his head and speaks in garbled grunts (helpfully translated into speech balloons on-screen). As you encounter different plants and zombies in the game, they are added to an almanac that lists strengths, special moves, and an often hilarious brief description. There is also a shop where you can buy new plants types and a few other defenses. You also unlock a “Zen Garden” where you can grow several plants that earn you rewards when they reach maturity. Apart from the regular Adventure mode, Plants vs Zombies also includes several fun mini-games including Wall-Nut Bowling and a Slot Machine mode in which you must use a slot machine to win different types of plants to defend your lawn. Additionally, there are several puzzle modes such as one where you play things from the side of the zombies trying to fight your way through a group of plants (actually cardboard cutouts so no actual plants are harmed). Finally, you will unlock the Survival mode which ups the ante a bit, making things much more difficult for your spirited band of plants.

Plants vs Zombies is a deceptive little title. It sneaks by your defenses with a cute presentation and goofy charm. You start out by putting down a few waves of shuffling zombies, and you start to think that this might be an easy encounter to win. Soon enough the game gets its hooks into you, and you’ll find yourself neck deep in a horde of zombies with tons of flaming peas flying through the air and snorkeling zombies swimming under your defenses, muttering curses under your breath as the zombies eat yet another one of your precious plants. It’s only then that you’ll realize hours have passed you by in the blink of an eye and too many utterances of the phrase “just one more”. Plants vs Zombies wears the guise of a “casual” game, but it has just as much depth, polish, content, and thoughtful strategy as any “hardcore” game. Perhaps the term “casual-core” should be invented, if it hasn’t been already.