MOGS

Plants vs. Zombies

I’m going on two months without playing WoW, and I have been looking for a new game. After reading reviews on a couple of sites, I stumbled on Plants vs. Zombies this $20 game from Popcap.com is strange in concept but a ton of fun to play. I played the trial on Friday then ended up purchasing the game minutes after the trial ended to play more. The game is a “tower defense” game, where wave after wave of zombies attempt to cross your lawn, pool, or even the roof of your house in hopes to eat your brains. It’s up to you to plant a garden using the 6×9 tile grid to plant various plants with different attacks, abilities and defenses as fast, and strategic as you can given the number of seed slots (different kinds of plants you have) for the level. For those who aren’t familiar with tower defense games, from either various flash games or Warcraft 3 custom tower defenses, this game has a small learning curve so almost anyone can learn (my 8 yr. old cousin had a blast with the game). With 49 different kinds of plants from gatling gun Pea shooters to giant piranha plants, and 26 different zombies that vary from the basic mindless zombie, to scuba-divers, zamboni drivers, and “gigantaur” there’s always something new in every level in the adventure mode to keep the game moving. The adventure mode is only 5 worlds long and takes about 4-5 hours to play through, but it’s all building up to prepare you for everything else the game has in store. After completing the adventure mode the first time around, you can play through it again with an added twist and a harder difficulty. Aside from the adventure mode, there’s a ton of fun mini-games, puzzle games, survival modes, and even a zen garden to keep the game changing with new and unique challenges to complete. Once you complete the survival mode challenges, you are presented with survival mode endless, where you try to see how many waves of zombies your defense can handle. First starting with 1-5 zombies per wave in the first levels, building up to hundreds of zombies per wave towards lvl 40. I’ve only made it to wave 42 on my first attempt, hoping to make it to wave 100 by the end of the week. Before I forget to mention it, one thing this game has that many take for granted, is a great soundtrack to keep you immersed in the game.  I’ve found myself lost in the folds of planting my garden, fending off waves of zombies, zoned into the music into the late hours of the night. Besides my normal video game binge, this game isn’t  a huge time commitment, levels take anywhere from 10-20 minutes to complete and you can pause it at any time to go do whatever you have to do.

On my zombie kick from this game, my favorite shirt site ended printing a shirt that fits the theme of the game on Saturday and I was the first to purchase it that night within .087seconds of it going up for the day’s sales: http://shirt.woot.com/friends.aspx?k=9633.

I recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a game that is cheap, has a lot of strategy, and isn’t a huge time commitment.