A fun casual spin on the tower defense genre.

Reviewed by CommanderVideo on or around 10th Jul 2009

This has been a great couple months for my tower defense cravings. Ninjatown was great, and now Plants Vs. Zombies surprises me as well!
 
This is another tower defense game that manages to avoid feeling too samey. Also, this game did a wonderful job of maintaining a very casual vibe throughout. Pop Cap likes to cater to the casual audience, and they managed to take a genre that can easily become very hardcore and deliver a casual experience, all the while rewarding the player heavily as they go. One of the most interesting things that they did was they put the zombies on the right, and the plants on the left. Also, the zombies pretty much walk in a straight line. There are no forks in the road. The hardcore gamer in me wondered how this was going to remain engaging as the game progressed, but rest assured, they throw enough unique challenges at you to keep you entertained from start to finish.
 
The Goods:
 
- The art is amazing. Mind you, it's not amazing if hyper-realism is what you enjoy, but thematically it all fits together. It is a great package as a whole, and it's easy on the eyes.
 
- The gameplay is easy to understand. Managing resources is more fun than it is in a lot of tower defense games where money comes in automatically for defeating enemies. Here, it's an active process.
 
- The credits song. What did Portal start? I hope it continues! Because this song rocks.
 
- The mini-games and challenges are very nice.
 
The Bads:
 
- The game is a little too easy. I think that even for the casual crowd, this game could have been more challenging. I think I got a game over once.
 
- The economy seems a little broken, placing really cool items out of reach by thousands of dollars. By the end of the game, I'd have liked to have bought some of the stuff that was offered, but I didn't really have enough money to explore the upgrades very much. I believe that this could be a byproduct of the game being too easy. If I had had to replay levels more often, the money earned from doing so would have helped me to afford some of the more expensive items. And then, those would have helped me to do better in my battles. As it was, I beat the game without seeing the coolest upgrades. Without even being close to affording them.
 
Plants Vs. Zombies is one of those games that whether you do well at or fail at, you'll remember with a smile. I can't think of anyone I wouldn't recommend it to. Ok, maybe Richard Schritter, but he's practically the only one.