Plants vs. Zombies

     One of the best "casual" games in the past few years has made its entirely expected transition to the iPhone. For the uninitiated, Plants vs. Zombies (PvZ) is most often characterized as a twist on the tower defense sub-genre of strategy games. Popcap franchises such as Peggle and Bookworm have successfully moved to this platform, and gamers are in luck with another quality port. Fans of the PC game will feel right at home while newcomers are treated to a great game at a lower price point.

     The zombie apocalypse is upon us (finally!) and you must protect your house. Unfortunately, your zombie survival guide won't be of much use in this fight, so trade it in for a few packets of seed. Strategically place garden plants within the grids of your front or back lawns, day and night, to protect from waves of various undead. While this sounds ridiculous, sitting down with the game reveals an immediate charm that will repeatedly make you smile as you progress through the adventure. A colorful, comic art style makes every variety of plant and enemy unique. This is essential for the reduced display of the iPhone and every item stays easily identifiable.

     Sunflowers (and their night time equivalent, sun-shrooms) provide resource in the form of solar power which allows you to buy more offensive and defensive plants. A whooping 49 different plants (including the upgrade varieties of basic plants) will be your best friends in the battle. Wall-nuts defend the front line, peashooters provide your most basic offense, lily-pads allow plants in your back-yard pool and squashes enact their namesake on any foe who comes near. These lovable, pun-filled imaginings of common plants are certainly cute, but the real stars are over 20 basic types of rotting corpses. Your former neighbors fill the ranks as the common creeper, but watch for when these adaptable undead happen to find a road cone to safeguard their craniums or a screen door to shield themselves. If you think these improvisational zombies pose a threat, wait until you have Football Zombie charging at your door, Dancing Zombie (think Thriller) and his Backup Dancers waltzing pass your Wall-nuts, or Zomboni straying out of the rink and into your living room.  

     The touch screen interface, aided by the game's grid-based levels, works incredibly well. In some ways, it is a superior interface due to the ability to use both hands instead of being limited to a single mouse. The layout is a natural fit and it does not disappoint. Unfortunately, a new platform apparently didn't provide the chance to fix some of the old issues.

     PvZ on the PC is a game clearly built to be played beyond just a single trip through the adventure mode. After defeating the final boss, additional content is provided in mini-game, puzzle, and survival challenges. While these challenges are some of the best content in the entire game, to obtain all of the plants and complete the achievements required mastering all previously mentioned content, a second play through of adventure mode, as well as grinding. Luckily, time sinks such as the Tree of Wisdom have been removed from the iPhone version, but so have money generating items such as the various Zen gardens. These items also unlocked upon the completion of adventure mode but served as little more than a distraction.

     Unfortunately, the decision to change the post-adventure content included the removal of the fantastic Challenge modes. The PC challenges provide just that; requiring an exceptional knowledge of how to use all plants (or often, a very limited few) to overcome unique tests. In their place is a boring array of content cut out of the adventure mode. There is no way to mark which of this extra content you have even tried. However, if the idea is to allow players to quickly jump into a favorite level type, there is no reason to keep this locked until the end of the game. The iPhone platform is mostly about playing in small bites, and any decision to reduce the user's ability to take what they can out of a game is generally a bad idea. Neither the PC nor iPhone versions contain a true level select, and quick play feels like only a half hearted attempt. The PC content does not play significantly different, so there is little reason to explain the absence. Unfortunately, this lack of interesting post adventure-mode content removes both the carrot and the stick from late-game play. There are significantly less ways to enjoy earning money for the premium plants, and almost no reason to need them.

     While this package is not everything the primary platform provides, it still provides great value and deserves to be bought. With the low initial price point ($3) the adventure mode provides challenge and fun for new players and enough for veterans to recapture that loving feeling.  Any compliments on the game's charm should not discredit the strategy of the game itself. Even tower defense veterans will realize there is quite a bit of challenge hidden within the variety of units and each of the five settings. Peggle professors looking for a new fix, zombie addicts who need to test their trigger finger and tower defenders who want to get their hands dirty can all rejoice that gardening is a go.

Review Notes: The copy of Plants vs. Zombies was purchased with personal funds. Review play time consisted of a full playthrough of adventure mode, and ten rounds of quickplay. Reviewer has extensive playtime of PC version of game (40+ hours, 100% completion.) The game was played on an iPhone 3GS. Users of previous generation iPhones have speculated on performance issues hindering gameplay. In the playtime for review, only the busiest scenes generated any slowdown, and it was not to the point of impacting the game.