2009’s original Plants vs. Zombies™ was a slightly strange release. The graphics were pretty basic, but it was blessed with cunningly simple gameplay and it was also frighteningly addictive. If you somehow managed to avoid it, the basic premise was to plant seeds, flowers, funghi and various forms of vegetation in your front garden in order to ward off waves of relentless invading zombies hell bent on eating your flesh and generally well…er, you know what Zombies want to do.
Despite it’s description, Plants vs. Zombies™ was actually a deceptively cunning strategy game, combining the dynamics of puzzlers with the tension and excitement of good old fashioned arcadia. It was old school, but good enough to become a pretty major hit on virtually all the consoles.
Now Plants vs. Zombies™ Garden Warfare is here and this time developers EA have broken out of the two dimensions and gone all first-person-shooter on us. It’s a bit like going from black & white freeview to Sky+ with full HD, there is a new world to explore with angles and dimensions and from a personal point of view it’s so nice to see a first person shoot-em up that doesn’t go headfirst in to the blood and guts realism angle.
In Garden Warfare the tongue is firmly ‘planted’ (sorry) in the cheek and guess what? It’s fun! Garden Warfare takes the mechanics of those increasingly dull killing games and brings it back home to the kids. There are tons of options, with team deathmatch style battles and one-against-all gameplay to keep you interested and tons of level up opportunities along the way. Despite the cartoon-y graphics and light-hearted tone, Garden Warfare does hold enough gravity to keep the attention well passed its supposed novelty value.
Friday night, pizza, beers, friends, Zombie Garden Warfare. What more do you need?
***This post has been sponsored by EA Games but all thoughts are our own**