Popcap has combined two of my favorite gaming past times:
- Tower Defense
- Zombie Killin’
And added a little bit of their own Popcap spin on the genre. They even added a bit of “card collecting” to the mix, although thankfully that’s only a limited implementation. (Because it would end me.) Essentially, you can only take a certain number of “units” into the next stage. You have to pick and choose from your seed packet collection, which gets larger the more stages you progress through.
There are zombies attacking your yard from the right hand side of the screen. Your job is to plant different kinds of. . . plants. . . that prevent them from getting to the left hand side of the screen, which is your house. They plants basically replace the towers of Tower Defense, and perform many of the same functions, such as shoot zombies, slow zombies, eat them, etc. Zombies are limited to single rows, and there are five rows. Think spreadsheet.
Essentially, I think someone with a bit more excel knowledge can probably hack some sort of PvZ action for some clandestine gaming at the office.
The graphics are incredibly cute, and it’s rockin’ the whole Saturday Morning Cartoon vibe from the designs. Certain zombies are wearing buckets over their heads. Which means they’re nigh invulnerable until the bucket is knocked off with enough damage. Other zombies are wearing traffic cones. It looks like there are about thirty different zombie types and nearly fifty plant types. Which sounds like enough depth that I wouldn’t mind the purchase price.
The end result: Plants vs. Zombies is an incredible time sink. My limited time demo came and went without me noticing so now I’m left with only one, surprisingly difficult question to answer.
Which platform to buy it for.
Update: I’m thinking Steam.