With the release last week of Plants vs. Zombies 2 on iOS, I thought I would put out some thoughts about the original Plants vs. Zombies (PvZ) from PopCap (maker of many awesome games). The wildly successful PvZ is a tower defense game where you protect your house (and brain) from wave after wave of zombies using plants. The game has been released on virtually every platform you can imagine since its original Windows/OS X release in 2009.
The game is played with your house on the left of the screen and zombies approaching from the right along lanes in your front lawn. Using sunlight points picked up by tapping on a sunburst icon on screen, you can buy plants for your yard that each have their own unique ability. A sunflower to add more sunlight, pea shooters to fire at and kill zombies, potato mines that explore on contact with a zombie, etc. The right mix of plants will keep you safe (and if you need to you can also use your lawn mower to clear a lane once).
The great thing about PvZ is its accessibility with easy touch screen controls and quick to learn gameplay. It is simple in concept, but ramps the complexity with new and more varied zombies and lots of different plants. You will have zombies who call other zombies to join them in attacking your house, pole vaulter zombies who move toward your house faster than other zombies, etc. The graphics are cute and a great counter point to body parts falling off zombies as you shoot at them.
PvZ also turns the typical tower defense game by using lanes in the yard to direct zombies toward your house rather than a single track or two that you place towers along to defeat the enemy. Probably the highest complement I can give PvZ is that it has completely sucked my wife in. She enjoys hidden object, match 3, mahjong and solitaire games, but has loved PvZ to the point where it is currently her go-to game. She was interested enough in it that she downloaded PvZ 2 the morning after it released - this is practically a first in our house. All for someone who would look at me quizzically if I said PvZ was a tower defense game. Next I am going to see if I can get her interested in Tiny Heroes.
Easy to learn, increasingly complex game play in a graphically appealing package. This is a classic and available on any platform you might want to try it on. You should have played PvZ by now, but if you haven't or you have someone in your household who plays games but has never tried tower defense games, go get PvZ or PvZ 2 - or play online for free here. Plants vs. Zombies gets 5 Mick Happies. Now, I am off to protect my brains (what's left of them).
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