Plants vs. Zombies

Price: £1.79

• CONCEPT: 9/10
• GRAPHICS: 8/10
• SOUND: 7/10
• CONTROLS: 9/10
• LASTING APPEAL: 8/10

If only we could defend ourselves against a zombie assault staged primarily in our back garden, well luck is at hand as this new take on the tower defence genre just happens to fulfil that need. We can now sleep easy knowing full well that our shrubbery will take care of any undead end of the world issues. Nice one shrubs!

In Plants vs. Zombies the undead slowly stumble from right to left across the stage attempting to break through your defences, enter your house and eat your brains, “brains” they mumble “BRAINS”, but they aren’t getting my brains and they’d be disappointed if they did! Despite this gruesome premise gameplay play is smooth and simple as are the controls that require just one finger and nothing more complex than tapping.

You start off with the choice of a few plants but unlike traditional tower defence games your potential allies increase ten fold as you thwart the enemy and earn cash. Zombie types increase in the same fashion with the more powerful zombies saved to face of against you in the final few levels. I mentioned cash so I’ll go into a bit more detail, early on you are introduced to Crazy Dave who happens to retail plants and such, you’ll have to save for the better ones but he offers an array of useful items for each level.

A few zombies are selected to face you in each level, as you can imagine certain plants are more powerful against certain zombies but you are free to choose your roster to a degree with night & day modes suggesting you use appropriate plants.

The only real disappointment is the difficulty, the game starts off pretty slow with tutorial levels etc, and ramps up as you progress but not as much as I would like, it never really feels challenging. I’ve also heard of older iPhones experiencing frame rate issues but I’ve had no problems with the 3GS as yet.

To end on a high note it’s an amazing game and the campaign is only the start, a tougher campaign is unlocked upon completion (in terms of three of your roster selection are locked in place) along with loads of extra features (mini games) which all take from the campaign with some subtle, interesting gameplay changes. PvZ has a great cartoon style and can be genuinely funny, it’s addictive as you like.

Jon