Plants vs Zombies is a different take on the zombie apocalypse – a single player tower defense game from PopCap where you protect your house from hordes of brain eating undead.
In your arsenal is a variety of mutant plants to help fight off the zombie army. Should you fail, they’ll bust in and eat your brains. I first thought this zombie game might a bit goofy, but after seeing it’s been ported across so many different platforms and has received numerous awards and nominations I wanted to give it a shot.
Plants vs Zombies is set up in a grid like pattern, and the zombies will follow a single lane towards your house. You can collect sunlight to grow plants with specific abilities to stop them, such as pea shooters and potato mines. As the levels progress, the zombies come in harder varieties with different talents, and you must counter them as best you can. At first they come across your front yard, then your back yard (with pool) and then the zombies try a final assault over the roof. Oh and there’s other effects like fog and nighttime attacks where there’s no sunlight so you can only fight with a strange variety of mushrooms.
You earn money during the game so you can buy additional plants and equipment from your only surviving neighbor ‘Crazy Dave’. How does he get all the good stuff? I don’t know, but you’ll need them to survive the harder levels. In the PC version you’ll also be able to unlock zombie puzzles, mini-games and even a survival mode. I found them all enjoyable too.
Plants vs Zombies is a strategy game completely controlled with the mouse, so there’s no keyboard commands needed, making for very casual play. The biggest complaint I’ve heard of is the game has a fixed resolution of 800×600, and there is no way to change that. I run PvZ in full screen and think it looks fine but you may feel differently. Oh, did I mention there are zombie dolphins?