The only thing between your brains and zombies are the plants on your lawn.

The tagline for Popcap’s latest offering is ‘Get Ready to Soil Your Plants.”  Plants vs. Zombies as a concept is something I’ve never seen before.  Sure, I’ve fought off zombies, in fact I’ve had a number of posts recently fawning over Left 4 Dead.  I’ve played Tower Defense games (careful with that link, hours will be gone before you know it).  I’ve even planted flowers, but to combine the concept in a game I’d be okay with my daughter playing?  Amazing!

Maybe you’ve seen the music video with its catchy phrases (’There’s a zombie on your lawn,’ ‘I know your type: Tall, dark and dead, you want to bite the petals off of my head.’), and if you haven’t you should really take the time to watch it because it’s hilarious.  I know when I first saw the trailer that I had to play the game.

Things are pretty simple at the start. Defend one row from zombies, because they don't walk on the dirt it's too rough on their undead feet.

A different kind of tower defense

If you’ve ever played a tower defense game, the gameplay of Plants vs. Zombies will come pretty easily too you.  Build up your defenses, in this case plants, to ward off invaders, in this case zombies.

The game really eases you into the concept, starting off with only one path to defend and giving you gentle tips to collect the sunshine (because the only way you can build plants is with sunshine).  Sunshine is the only ‘resource’ in the game and you will live or die based on how much of it you gather.  It falls from the sky and can also be produced from sunflowers.  There’s a good chance you’ll be overrun by the zombie hordes if you don’t stock up on sunflowers.  A good strategy on most levels is actually pumping out massive numbers of sunflowers in an effort to boost the amount of sunshine coming in.  That way, you can build more unwieldly plants to truly devastate the zombies.

There are plenty of plants in the game to help you fight away the zombie hordes.  It starts off pretty simple, but as you get plants that are more fierce, the zombies you fight get stronger.  The strategies for fighting also change.  It’s not enough to just put out plants that shoot more, because some zombies have shields and will be able to chew through a couple plants devastating your defense.

Arm Yourself With These Plants… and More!

The Sunflower doesn't kill anything, but provides sunshine to build.

The Cherry Bomb is effective at leveling large groups of zombies.

A lawn mine will destroy any zombie that walks on it, but arming takes time.

Zombies coming at you too fast? Snow Peas slow zombies down.

There’s a Plant For That

Diversity in plant life will keep you alive.

For times where you feel like you’re being overrun, there’s a plant for that.  Throw out a Cherry Bomb, a plant that explodes and destroys all enemies in the vicinity.  Facing a zombie that tunnels under your front line and starts attacking from behind? There’s a plant for that.  It shoots forward and backwards.  Fighting on water?  There are aquatic plants, or you can toss out a lily pad and build any plant you’d like.  Fighting at night? You can equip yourself with mushrooms that further change your leafy defense.  Fighting in fog? Well… there’s no plant for that, but you can build a lamp post to light your way.  If you run into a zombie holding a screen door as a shield, it might be best to break out a mushroom that shoots gas through the screen.  If your plants are getting roughed up and eaten too quickly, you can give it a hard outer shell.

I’m actually pretty amazed at the variety and depth that presents itself in a game with such a simple concept.

Zombie! A Zombie with a shield! Oh, that's just a screen door? Then gas him!

Garden Variety

There are 50 levels in the adventure mode broken up into five sections.  You fight in your front yard, your back yard (which introduces the pool and thus the need for aquatic plants), at night and in the fog.  The battle even heads to the roof, where there’s no soil.  Without soil, your army is dependent on pots.  Without a pot, you can’t plant your army.  Luckily, someone has left pots on the roof for you to start with.

There are 26 types of zombies and 49 ‘powerful perennials’.  All are detailed in the almanac after you encounter them.  The almanac is filled with flavor text that adds a bit of comedic touch.  Comedy is rampant throughout, as if you couldn’t tell from a name like Plants vs Zombies.

Killing Zombies For Fun & Profit

There’s more to killing zombies than just keeping them from eating your brains.  It pays.  In fact, there’s a store in the game that allows you to get plant upgrades, expand the number of plants you can equip and get random miscellaneous goods like garden rakes, pool and roof cleaners.  The plant upgrades are extremely useful.  One mutates your sunflowers and turns them in dual-headed sun-producers while another turns your plant into mini-gun like devastator.  While you’re killing, money will churn out allowing you to purchase the upgrades.

There also plenty of modes apart from the adventure mode.  Mini-games, puzzle, survival and a Zen Garden are some of the unlockable modes.  You can earn additional money through those.

At battles end, collect your loot. In this case, it's a three-headed plant that shoots in three lanes at once.

The game is full of depth for being something so cheap ($19.99 direct from PopCap or $9.99 on Steam).  If you’re interested in checking it out, but don’t want to shell out the cash for the game there is a demo available. The demo lasts just 30 minutes, or about enough time for you to get hooked and download the full game.

Plants vs. Zombies truly impresses.  I was addicted from the start.  I played it for hours and didn’t realize where the time had gone.  While being the kind of game you can play for long periods of time, it’s also the kind of game you can pick up and play for a short time and then set it back down.

The only gripe I have with the game is that it’s dependent entirely on the mouse.  I’d love to be able to hotkey my different plants for faster building, but that’s not an option right now.  It could be attributed to balancing, but I’m thinking it would be better with hotkeys.

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