App Review: Plants vs. Zombies
Category: Games
Price: $2.99
TiP Rating: 5/5 stars
Release Date: 2/15/2010
Version: 1.0
Seller: PopCap Games Inc.
Rated: 9+
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone and iPod Touch, requires OS 2.2.1 or later.
App Store Description: Get ready to soil your plants in this brand-new version of the hit PopCap game! A mob of fun-loving zombies is about to invade your home, and your only defense is an arsenal of 49 zombie-zapping plants. Use pea shooters, wall-nuts, cherry bombs and more to slow down, confuse, weaken and mulchify 26 types of zombies before they can reach your front door.
Summary: Plants vs. Zombies is a fantastically addictive mobile game. The general idea is to build up rows and rows of horticultural defense in your yard to immobilize the horde of hungry zombies climbing over your fence. This app is nothing short of genius!
Review: I’m sure I’m not the only person who upon downloading a sweet looking game, discovers that it isn’t all that. I’ve been disappointed a lot by iPhone games, ones that look like they should be excellent turn out to be useless and plain. With Plants vs. Zombies it was the complete opposite. I hadn’t heard of it before, and when I eventually found it I wasn’t expecting a lot. (In complete truth I was hoping for an app I could really sink my critical teeth in to, alas, this was not to be.) I was pleasantly surprised.
Upon loading up the game you get two options, “Adventure” and “Quick Play”, the latter isn’t available until you complete the adventure mode. “Adventure” is basically a kinda career mode, you work your way through different stages and scenarios until all zombies are gone. During the course of the game you collect and unlock different plants, and cash. The cool thing is you unlock a new plant after successfully completing each level.
The basic structure to playing the game is as follows: You have a garden, on it are rows on which you can plant. Each plant has a different strengths and weaknesses and so you need to strategically place them where they should be most effective. Some fire long range, others simply block the way to give you more time. At the beginning of each level you have to select the plants you want available to plant. They cost various amounts of “sun”, which drops from the sky and is produced by your sunflowers and special mushrooms. It’s a pretty simple game to understand. What makes it challenging is that once you have a few stages under your belt you have, say, 20-30 different plants to choose from, but only 7-8 spaces to fit them in. Graphics are nice, colorful and smooth, the sounds can get a little irritating, but you can just switch your device on mute.
Generally speaking, I try to find something wrong with an app, or at least something to improve it. With this offering I’m really struggling to come up with anything, I completely love it. In fact, I’m sure at one point I was sat in the bathroom playing it for about half an hour, I just couldn’t put it down. Losing a day is a simple task with this one. I guess one thing that could be cool is an option to have a bluetooth multiplayer option where one person controls the zombies and the other controls the plants. That is all I can come up with, sorry. However, for $2.99 I don’t think there is any other app that comes close to this value for money wise. Brilliant!
