What I Think Of.... Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare

After spending a good day and a half with EA and PopCap's new Third Person Shooter PvZ: Garden Warfare, I am ready to give an initial reaction to a game many people were looking forward to, but maybe were unsure of what exactly they were getting.

They all look so CUTE!

I of course mean that in the best way possible. People spent DAYS and WEEKS with the original Plants Vs. Zombies and it's available on literally everything ever, probably even that watch phone you bought so you could feel like Dick Tracy. I remember myself spending a lot of time saving my garden from the waves of zombies coming for BRAAAIIIINNNS, and I remember really enjoying it and feeling like PopCap had struck gold again after games like Bejeweled and Peggle. So when I first heard that they were taking a 2D Strategy-style game and turning it into a Third Person Shooter, at first I didn't know what to think, is this gonna work or is this gonna end up feeling like Angry Birds and just cash in on something that works until it gets beaten into the ground?

Feed me Seymour! What? Too obvious?

So this game is purely online. Sure, you can play it by yourself, but it's still on a server. Let me explain: "Garden Ops" is the first mode on the list and it is, essentially, horde mode. Which is to say, they took the concept of PvZ and put it into a shooter. Simple, basic, but still a lot of fun. That can be played with up to 4 players, and if you want to try a difficulty any higher than "easy", I recommend having others help you out. You can play this mode solo if you want, but you are still using a private server. Online only eh? You would have thought EA learned from their earlier attempt with that concept.

Side Note: As far as the servers go, I had little problems getting in to games. There was an hour chunk of the day where I couldn't connect to the EA servers and, therefore, couldn't play the game at all, but they did some server maintenance and it seems to be more stable now.

In the "Garden Ops" mode, you and your team take on waves of zombies trying to destroy your garden. There are 3 spots you can choose from to place your garden and build your defenses around, which seems VERY similar to the Gears of War style Horde mode. Your defenses consist of plants you put in strategic pots around the garden, you collect these defenses by buying "Sticker Packs" from the store (I'll get to that later, if I start going down a different road, I will never get back to where I was).

There are 10 Waves of increasingly difficult zombies, with waves 5 and 10 consisting of a slot machine that determines which zombies and Boss Zombie you will face in that wave. I assume this to actually be random but I have not played enough games of this to say one way or the other. It may be based on difficulty level, but I assume it's random. After the 10th wave, you and your team must get to the extraction point to be rescued while holding off against the enemy. Seems familiar, right?

See what happens when you don't eat your veggies?

The competitive multiplayer seems to be the real meat of the game. 24 players can go online and fight in traditional modes such as "Team Vanquish" (Team Deathmatch) and "Gardens and Graveyards" (Control Points). You have your choice of classes as well. Since this isn't a true "review", I won't get into them all but, as you can imagine, the usual suspects are here: Assault-type, Medic-type, Heavy-type, etc.

The classes of the plants

The action is pretty frantic and I found myself enjoying my time online. It seems like one of those "for-fun" shooters that can give people a break from the Call of Duty, Battlefield style of game. Every game I got into was full of people, though I imagine when Titanfall, is released, that could have an impact on that, though I am sure there will still be plenty of people playing this.

Zombie classes

Throughout your time, you collect coins by killing other player, assisting, destroying barriers, etc. These coins go towards purchasing sticker packs which can unlock various things: Customization options, consumables, pieces to unlock other characters, defenses for "Garden Ops" mode, etc. It all seems really well put together and (at least for right now) is constantly rewarding me.

From my time spent with this game, I feel this is a nice, cute, funny shooter that will hold me over until the big games come out. I will definitely keep playing this and I suggest you do too. The $40 price tag certainly helps.