Plants vs Zombies

Available on - PC(steam and PopCap's site)as well as Iphone and Ipad.
Score between 7 and 10 - 9(Great)
You may like Plants vs Zombies if you like - Desktop Tower Defense, Defense Grid, Ninja Town or other tower defense games. Even if you do not like Tower Defense games, if you have dug past PopCap efforts such as Chuzzle, Peggle and Rocketmania then Plants Vs Zombies is worth a look.


Game Concept - There's a zombie on your lawn! OMG what do you do? Do you go for your handgun that has tons of backup ammo? Maybe your grand daddies old shotgun which provides more spread but less range is the best option? Or maybe you should use your hunting rifle to pick them off at the safest distance possible? While your busy debating the important survival tactics of surviving a zombie apocalypse your mom is kicking back drinking tea because she knows the true secret of survival lies in her garden! As any good zombie enthusiast knows Plants are the natural enemies of zombies and go out of their way to kill every last one. In Plants vs Zombies you will face a steady stream of zombies marching their way across your lawn towards intent on eating your brain, the only way to defend yourself is to play garden general and plant various vegetation that will defend you. Each plant will cost energy points, which in most stages is slowly dropped by the sun, but can also be provided from sunflowers you plant. So the basic concept is defend yourself by planting a good mix of offensive, defensive and energy providing plants. Sound simple? Well for the most part it is, but as time goes on you will face different types of zombies and stages that will keep the game challenging.


Pros
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Amazing bang for your buck - The game costs $20 at PopCap which is a fair price to ask, but if you pick it up through steam you can grab the game for $10! Given the fact that I have played through this game twice putting in 30-50 hours on both play, and knowing I will play this game again many times in the future I think your getting an incredible value. But hey that's PopCap!

Very cute and pretty funny - The game just oozes charm, each zombie, plant and the story itself are all designed to be entertaining and amusing.

A large cast of plants and zombies offer great variety - The game features 40 different unique plants, 10 power ups for those plants, 40 zombies and 1 zombie boss! That is a rather large amount of enemies and units for a $10 game!

Plants vs Zombies features a surprising amount of strategy for such a simple game. - At the start of the game you will only have a few plants which greatly limits your strategy, but by the end with all the plants and power ups available to you each person can have their own play style. Where one person may cover their lawn in starfruit that cost only 125 and do low damage but attack in 5 directions providing strength in numbers, another person may chose to have half their lawn empty but its made up for by the fact that they are using ice melons which are run you 500 points but do damage to a group of enemies and freeze them in the process. Half of the fun of this game is coming up with and altering your strategies over time. My first play through I relied heavily on basic pea shooters hid behind walnuts until watermelons opened up, but my second play through I found myself using a corn tosser/starfruit combo.

Just when you think the game is over along come the bonus missions! -I have played games before that toss in a few bonus missions at the end to extend playtime, but rarely are they as fun nor are there as many as PvZ offers! As you play a few bonus missions like zombie bowling open up, but after you beat the game you are flooded with a total of 22 mini games and challenges! There are a few junk games in the mix, but most like Izombie where you take control of the zombies and have to strategically use limited resources to get your zombies to finish off the plants add amazing replay and length to the game!

Best End Credit Song ever - Ok this may not be the biggest pro in the world, but seriously the song is just so cute and amusing! I have yet to show it to someone and not have them smile.....not to mention often catch them humming the song later! My wife has never even played the game yet she can sing the credits line for line!


Cons
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The game is way too easy outside a few bonus missions - I found Plants vs Zombies to be WAY too easy, even the second play through which is supposed to be harder lacks difficulty IMO. I thought it might just be that I was really good at this game, but then my 10 year old brother beat the game without problems...and suddenly I felt less talented ;( A few of the bonus missions can be rather difficult, and yes there is survival mode, but those do not come until after you have beaten the main game and survival mode does not get challenging until you are several stages in. It would have been really nice if PopCap would have provided a hard made where more zombies came out you and moved faster.

Closing Comments - Nothing sums up Plants vs Zombies better then the fact that I only could think of a single negative thing to say, and even that negative is not a huge one! The game may have a few other minor flaws that bug certain people, but honestly PvZ is easily among the best downloadable titles ever. It thrills me that the game turned out this well because the industry needs more good games that bridge the gap between casual and hardcore gamers like this. People talk about the Wii being a gateway system for casual gamers to become hardcore, but I think PopCap on the PC with efforts like this are really the people turning today's casual into tomorrows hardcore. Now if you will excuse me while I may have beaten the game I have one last achievement that must be mine!