Game Review: Plants vs. Zombies

So here's a little computer game that's kept me up way past my bedtime several nights over the past few weeks. Pop Cap's Plants vs. Zombies is a defend-your-castle style game, which I've played before, but I'd never played one quite as addictive as this one. The premise is simple: defend your house from hordes of zombies with a variety of nearly 50 plants.

When I write it like that, the game sounds kind of lame, but it's remarkably well done. The zombies get steadily more ridiculous (and difficult) as the game progresses, with pole vaulters, Michael Jackson impersonators, Zamboni drivers, and punks on pogo sticks all making appearances. Every level or so, you get a new plant to add to the arsenal, and that's where the addiction came in for me. As soon as I got a new plant, I was compelled to try to use it. And often you have to use the new plant or mushroom to get past the next zombie threat. There's the simple peashooters at the beginning, a hypnotizing mushroom that turns zombies against their zombie brethren, and ears of corn that lob pads of butters at zombies, making them slip up.


Yes, it's all very silly, and at least for me, not especially difficult. Out of the 50 levels in the Adventure Mode, I only lost a few and had to try them over again. But that didn't make the game any less enjoyable. There are also lots of mini-games (which I'm still working on), and you can collect coins and jewels to buy lots of other plants and gadgets for more playing.

Plants vs. Zombies was, quite honestly, the best $20 I've spent in a long time. It's not going to change your life or anything, but it will challenge you just enough to keep playing and entertain you enough that you wish it actually lasted longer.