Shenanigans & Tomfoolery

Tower defense games are perhaps the most thriving and successful video game genre on the iPhone right now. The more passive nature and the “tap to select, tap to place, tap to upgrade” nature of these games lend themselves very well to a device that, I think, has yet to prove itself as a true gaming platform.

Plants vs. Zombies came out on the PC some months ago and I was intrigued by it after trying the demo but I decided to hold off on it until the eventual iPhone release. I just couldn’t wrap my head around playing a tower defense game on my PC when I could be playing Team Fortress 2 instead so I waited. The iPhone version came out at the unbelievably cheap price of three bucks compared the the $20 it cost when it was released on the PC so I purchased it without a thought.

Here are my thoughts in Plants vs. Zombies for the iPhone.

As I said, Plants vs. Zombies (PvZ from now on) is tower defense game where you have to defend your base against oncoming waves of enemies by strategically placing towers on the playing field. In PvZ, your base if your house, your enemies are the zombies, your towers are your plants and the playing field is your yard but the underlying structure of the tried and true genre is the same.

The currency you’ll use to purchase your towers/plants are “Sun,” which are orbs of light that fall from the sky during daytime (more on this later) or which you can get from specific plants after certain intervals. What really sets this game apart from other tower defense games, aside from the humor which I’ll delve into later, is the amount of plants at your disposal. Most tower defense games settle for some 6-12 towers but in PvZ you’ll collect a whooping 49 plants for you to create your very own zombie hell with. Only a handful of them are upgradeable though and some are just variations of others but the diversity is there. Zombies come in many different variations as well and with specific plants being super effective (yes, a Pokemon reference, whatever) against specific zombies and with you being able to bring only 6-9 plants with you during a level, you’re constantly forced to re-think your plant loadout. Luckily, at the plant select screen the game tells exactly which enemies you’ll be facing so there’s never a reason for you to be caught off guard. Also, during your second playthrough, the game locks three random plants in your loadout forcing you to move away from your comfort zone and encouraging experimentation.

Aside from the number of plants and zombies, PvZ shakes things up by introducing different kinds of terrain in which you wage battle. These consist of day, night, water and roof and, rather than being merely aesthetic changes, they change how you’ll approach any given level. The yard grid is mostly the same size during the entire game but during night for example, you don’t get periodic Sun drops and you have to rely on the cheaper, but not nearly as effective, mushrooms to dispatch zombies. Conversely, you can’t plant these night-only mushrooms during the day, at least until you get the Coffee Bean later on in the game. You can’t plant on water until you plant a Lily Pad first, on the roof you can only use catapults and so on and so forth. There are also fog levels (with their respective fog-countering plants) as well as some mini-games interspersed inbetween areas. PvZ moves stuff around just often enough so that you’re never doing the same thing for too long, always keeping things fresh.

And the game is funny. It’s honest to goodness funny. The first time you see a zombie running towards you with a pole vault you’re bound to get a giggle at the very least. Even funnier are the plant and zombie descriptions in the game’s Almanac which have made me laugh on multiple occasions. And scroll all the way down on the Achievement list for another laugh. In the current zombie craze, it’s refreshing to see a zombie title that doesn’t rely on buckets of gore or dark humor. Make no mistake, this game is as bright and cheery as an episode of Winnie the Pooh.

And so we come to my biggest issue with the game: it’s just ridiculously easy. This game has posed no challenge to me at all. I died only once during my first campaign and I’ve yet to die on my second playthrough despite being super cocky at times. It’s rarely even a close call against these zombies and most victories are landslide victories. I thought the punishingly hard goeDefense and PixelJunk Monsters made me really good at tower defense games but even my girlfriend who never plays video games (and somehow got addicted to this game) is breezing through it. I like to be challenged by video games and this game doesn’t deliver on that account.

Nonetheless, this is a really great game with stellar production values, pitch perfect controls, a sunny sense of humor and an unbeatable price. I never bought the PC version so I can’t say how it compares to that. I know the PC version has a Survival Mode which I either haven’t unlocked yet or just isn’t in the game but you get more than enough bang for your buck with PvZ. Just don’t expect any kind of challenge.