Plants vs Zombies is one of the most addicting tower defense game ever.
Take a simple setting: Zombie apocalypse.
Zombie apocalypse is one of the premises, along with the good old “quest for revenge“, that will never get old on me.
Then take a strategy: Stationary Defense.
It works in some case, it don’t in others. In the context of a tower defense game like Plants vs Zombies, it is viable.
Then take weapons: Plants
It sounds silly, but in the world of Plants vs Zombies, those are your best friends. + it is eco friendly.
Plants are powered by solar energy, it comes from… the Sun and plants like sunflowers and sunmushrooms (forget your biology class here). Then comes an arsenal of offensive and defensive plants. There are those that shoot peas, normal ones, freezing ones, repeating ones AND, upgrade of the repeating, the gatling one. There are explosive plants, for one use, zombie eating plants and zombie crushing one. Then for the defensive, there are the wall plants, the ones that explodes like mines, etc…
In the zombies side, there are the normal zombies, those with many kind of protections like doors, buckets, etc… Then there are those that tries to get around your protections by pole vaulting, pogo hopping or some even rides dolphins. And others digs underground to eat your defense from behind.
At the start of a level, you are given a limited number of slots with a limited number of seeds for your lawn. You are also shown what kind of zombies you are facing. If you are seeing a Digger, you may want to choose a mine or/and a plant that shoot forward AND backward. If you see one that flies with a balloon, a cactus in your arsenal may be a good idea.
The management comes in the form of what to pick, what is cheap but efficient for the level. This is especially true in the night levels where sun power don’t come as easy, safe for the sunshrooms (you can be balls-out and take the sunflower). There are also the terrain that works against you, the pool is one example, another example would be the presence of fog, then the time of the day. At the moment, night + pool + fog is the worst to me.
Completing levels gives you new plants, and may unlock mini-games for great replay value. Another catch of these mini-game is the money reward that allow you to buy new toys from Crazy Dave, the shop owner and, I think, your neighbor who also brief you on some missions.
This is an addictive and excellent game that works even on those that sucks in tower defense games like I do. I think that the only way to make it more awesome would be some kind of online mode where one side can be the gardener, and the other play the zombies. Try it.
Tags: Video Games
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