Developed and published by Popcap in 2009, Plants vs. Zombies has many different versions, being on PC, Xbox, Playstation, DS and Mobile. This review will cover the Game of the Year edition for PCs. In Plants vs. Zombies, the player is tasked with defending their lawn from hordes of zombies with plants.
Plants vs. Zombies is a real time tower defense game, with 48 plants acting as your towers. Instead of placing towers around a path, there are different lanes that zombies come down from that you also place plants on which allows the zombies to attack your defenses directly instead of just walking around them. The player is able to plant plants using Sun which either falls from the sky or comes from “Sunflowers” or “Sunshrooms”, two plants in the game. There are five different arenas to fight in, each of them being simple yet distinct.
Day – The most simple board. Five lanes and no other gimmicks.
Night – Five lanes, graves spawn which prevent the player from planting on them and no sun falls from the sky.
Pool – Six lanes, the middle two rows are pool lanes which are more restrictive on how plants are planted and which zombies can appear there.
Fog – Six lanes, the middle two rows are pool lanes, fog appears to block the player’s vision and no sun falls from the sky.
Roof – Five lanes, the first few columns are slanted which stops most plants from firing forward and the player has to plant all plants on flower pots which cost sun.
Overall the gameplay loop is fun and strategic where the player can methodically plan out their entire game or frantically think on the fly as they go. While not the most complex game, the synergies present between the plants at the player’s disposal allows for a wide variety of strategies to be effective