Would it surprise anyone by now that I haven't played Plants vs. Zombies, at all, ever, in any form, on any device, since the 12 years that it has been out? I've not exactly got my finger on the pulse of what's hot or not, even when living right in the middle of it.
I guess I always cast it aside as little more than a mobile game, tower defense with silly characters. A game I just didn't want to play, no matter how easy it would be to do so. But here we are, finally seeing whether I was wrong or not. Again.
The living dead are approaching, and our last lines of defence are a bunch of plants. We're doomed.
Fun Times
I'm playing the PC version of Plants vs. Zombies, and it starts oh so simply by introducing you to the idea of tower defense games: Zombies will shamble on from the right, you can plant defenses in the grass, those defenses will automatically perform their battlefield role until they've been eaten, or you dig them up and plant something else in their place, and finally, sunshine fuels your efforts and pays for everything.
At the end of each level, we're given a packet of seeds to use for the future, in this case, some sunflower seeds which will generate their own sunshine and fuel our production of pea-shooters more efficiently. They're rubbish at anything other than producing sunshine, however, so where you place your plants is something to think about.
The gameplay is basically identical from round to round, save for the mini-game interludes (I had bowling with Wall-Nuts in this example), but you are encouraged to keep going by the new plants you have available, and the new zombies you need to defend against.
These zombies are smarter than you're average undead. The basic zombie recognizes that a cone hat offers more protection than none, and a bucket even more than a cone, but scattered amongst these basic zombies are more athletic types. A pole vaulter zombie is able to leap over the first plant it encounters, bypassing one of your defensive structures in an instant, requiring you to either act quickly to deal with the problem or to have planned ahead and factored this into your defenses.
Do you put a Potato mine nearby and hope it explodes in time, or do you slow it down with some frozen pea shooters, and finish it off with regular pea-shooters? The choice is yours to make and experiment with.
To further encourage experimentation, the number of plant types you have available is limited, so you'll have to pick and choose which plants will be effective against the threats of the level ahead, and the enemy types are displayed on this screen to give you a heads up and help with your decision making.
You don't have to plant things pretty, either. That just appears to be my style...
Or it was my style until the gameplay changed up once more.
It's still tower defense, but this time the plants I have available aren't dictated by the amount of sunlight I've collected, but by a scrolling bar of plants at the top of the screen. You can pick and choose the plants in any order, and unused plants will eventually stack up and reduce the space for new plants to move into, but you're basically given a little more freedom to have fun watching the carnage unfold.
Well, slow-motion carnage, at least.
Frustrations
As day turned to night, new challenges make themselves known, notably a lack of sunlight. How are you to pay for any plants at night? Mushrooms and lots of waiting. Getting your engine running at night is slower for sure, making plant selection all the more important, as well as the timing of planting them.
Do you stick with your plan of filling the backline with some sunlight generators to pay for everything, or is it more important to get a defense down early? Wall-Nuts are lovely for holding most enemies back, but you'll need something after them to actually kill the zombies for good.
We were also introduced to money in the middle of the night, where we can buy more plant slots and so on, as well as graves where zombies spawn from in addition to the right edge of the screen. Give it a few levels, though, and you'll be able to make use of a plant (of some sort) that eats gravestones and stops this from happening.
The arms race between the plants and the zombies is fascinating, as much as it is alarmingly simple and addictive. Gameplay is easy, so far, and your reward is something you want to immediately try out in another level of Plants vs. Zombies.
Final Word
But I did stop playing Plants vs. Zombies because while it is easy to get into and enjoy, it is a little slow and repetitive, and addictive, and time-consuming. It's all the things a good mobile game is, and you've got to be careful about them. They'll eat an afternoon without hesitation.
This game is good, that's easy to say, and it looks fantastic. The zombies are the stars of the show, but some of the plant designs are just as humorous, especially in the pun department. Seeing a new packet of seeds as a reward and then learning of its stupid name does just make you want to play one more game to see how they work out - one more game that will likely end in you getting another packet of seeds to try out...
The menu lists multiple modes, the scattering of mini-games based on the tower defense formula keep you on your toes and mix things up just enough to keep your attention. Basically, Plants vs. Zombies has what it needs to keep you engaged, and it succeeds in doing so.
I don't know how much of it I'll get through myself, but yes, I can clearly see how someone could sit and play this for hours, and then come back and do it all over again when their phone is charged up again.
I want to see some more silly plants and stupid zombies. It's taken me more than a decade to realize that, but there we go. Another title that I've missed out on for reasons probably based only on me not even giving it a few minutes to try and impress me first hand.
Sorry Zombies. Let's be friends.
Fun Facts
Plants vs. Zombies was a placeholder name, with Lawn of the Dead being preferred by designer George Fan. Not even a homemade video where he dressed up as a zombie trying to code the game could convince George A. Romero of Dawn of the Dead fame to budge, though.
Plants vs. Zombies, developed by PopCap Games, first released in 2009.
Version played: Plants vs. Zombies Game of the Year, PC, 2009.