Plants VS. Zombies: Garden Warfare
Producer: Electronic Arts
Release Date: January 25, 2014 / June 24th, 2014 (PC)
Platform: Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC
Rating: E10+
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Give Peas a Chance
Written by Josh Schilling
Everyone has played the original Plants vs. Zombies, right? The pseudo-tower defense type game with cute, funny plants protecting a house from cute, funny zombies that you can play on just about any electronic device short of a Fitbit? Well if you haven’t, you should, because it’s great. Based on the success of PvZ, the highly trusted developers at PopCap have made a sort-of sequel to that game that goes far beyond anywhere that they have gone before…into the thinly populated realm of multiplayer shooting games. You can’t fall down in your local game retailer without knocking over at least a half-dozen other online shooting games, so it’s a pretty gutsy move to hop into this genre when the majority of your fan base is happy flapping unhappy birds on tablets.
The result of this gamble is Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, a shooter that definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously. Harkening back to the cartoonish fun of Team Fortress 2, this game relies on humor and simple gameplay, rather than trying to be an intricate, fast-twitched prestige-fest. You select one of four classes from each of the titular teams and all of the characters are unique in their own way. There are the well-known soldier types, snipers, tanks and medics, but the depiction of the classes is what makes this game fun. The characters are mostly pulled from the original PvZ, and they will be familiar to those who have played it, but instead of a two-dimensional defense game, you now can run around as a Pea Shooter, a football-uniform clad zombie All Star, or any of the other classes in a third-person, three-dimensional map. Add that into a classic-form multiplayer gameplay mix, and you get a much needed respite from the military titles that dominate the genre.
While PvZ:GW is an online only game, it offers a couple of different styles to add some variety. The first is a horde-like match where you and up to three other players play as the plants in co-op mode, protecting your garden from waves of undead. The second is team-based multiplayer where you switch between plants or zombies after each round. There are a few different styles of multiplayer, including deathmatch, a bomb-protection mode, and probably the best selection, a stage based match called “Gardens and Graveyards,” where the zombies advance area by area while the plants defend. This variation captures the flavor of the original PvZ, and you can summon extra zombies on offense, or set up turret-like plants on defense in order to aide you and your brethren. After completing any match, you earn currency to unlock packs of cards that include quite a few different rewards. This is where you can win different varieties of the helper plants or zombies, as well as different character skins and weapon choices. Leveling up the characters is also fun, in that it’s not based on generic stats, but by completing specific tasks that are optional. All in all this game keeps it simple, which lets you just sit back, relax and have some fun.
Even with the quality of the styling of this game, it would fail miserably if the mechanics were crappy. This isn’t the case, as the animations are crisp, the maps are pretty well thought out, and even offer varieties of their own. The “Gardens and Graveyards” match offers different ways of completing the game depending on the map, and PopCap has promised free DLC that could add even more.
This game is genius in that it appeals to a wide range of people, from the hardcore shooter that wants a comedic variation, to the casual gamer that wants to “step up” to online play. PvZ:GW is a wonderful palate cleanser between the more intense titles, and offers up good, clean fun despite the massive piles of dead plants and zombies.