[Review] - Plants Versus Zombies

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Plants Versus Zombies

Developed by: Popcap Games

Published by: Popcap Games

Players: 1-2 (Local Only)

Rated E10 (Everyone 10+) by the ESRB

The Breakdown

The zombies, they’re coming…to your Xbox. One of the best takes on the tower defense genre has come to Xbox Live Arcade. Do reworked controls, new game types, and extremely polished graphics make this a worthwhile addition to your Arcade game collection? Read on to find out.

The Important Stuff

Plants Versus Zombies has become the standard tower defense game for most people. Starting out on the PC and making the excellent jump to the iPhone and iPad, the game faces the same challenges as most point and click games do when making the jump to a console, the controls. How do you keep that same feeling of using a mouse with analog sticks? Luckily for us, Popcap has really done a great job in making the controls feel just right in this latest port. A lot of tower defense games could take a cue from Popcap and tune their controls better.

Overall, the game play remains largely unchanged from previous versions, which isn’t a bad thing at all. You’re still defending your front yard, back yard, and roof from the oncoming zombie onslaught. All the mini games from the other versions are intact as well. A new mini game that is roughly based on one of Popcap’s other XBLA titles (Heavy Weapon) brings you a super powered pea shooter to face the zombies.

The addition of multiplayer and co-op is very welcome. In co-op, each player plants their own plants in the same yard. You have to work together and have a game plan or your brains will belong to the zombies. There are some really great co-op mini games as well. In the competitive multiplayer mode, one player takes control of the plants and one takes control of the zombies. This really does lead to some amazingly good times.

Tips and Tricks

- Always have a cheap attack plant at your disposal

- Be sure buy Crazy Dave’s slot and plant upgrades as soon as you can

- Use Wall-Nuts and Tall-Nuts to create a buffer for your attacking plants

Reaction

As a pretty big fan of almost every version of Plants Versus Zombies seeing an XBLA version come out was really great. I’ve purchased every version of the game that I could (PC and iPhone) and have played it on the iPad. While I really do prefer the controls on the iPhone/iPad, the jump to the console really does work well. Using the controller didn’t feel awkward at all and as I said above, many tower defense games should take a look at what Popcap has done here and take notes.

The mini-games remain a highlight for me. Wall-nut bowling remains my favorite. There’s just something about rolling that big eyed walnut down the lanes and watching it bounce around a horde of oncoming zombies that just makes me smile. The co-op and multiplayer are unexpectedly fun, but do bring up the only negative that I can say about the game and for some this may be a big detriment. No online play, local only. While this isn’t a huge problem for me, for most gamers nowadays, online play is a must. Overall the game is a very good port of an excellent game that brings enough new features to warrant the $15 price tag.

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