I don't usually like this kind of game. I didn't like this developers previous release "peggle" and I have to admit, I was surprised. More than surprised, I was blown away.
This game is fun. It's fun to play, it's fun to listen to and it's criminally cheap for the amount of content you get. I bought this for ten euro and I've already got at least two hours out of it, at the rate which I get through games these days that is very very good value for money.
So what's the game like, here's a screenshot.
Right so, see those plants. You plant those using the cards at the top. Then those zombies start walking over to your house and the plants do things to stop them. Some plants fire peas, others will eat the zombies, freeze them, whatever. It follows the basic tower defense formula loosely. Simplified in that the zombies approach along a single lane into your plants.
Most of the challenge comes from having the right plant in the right place. Well, what challenge there is anyway, but I'll get onto that in a moment.
I just want to make a mention of the animations in this game. It really looks great, a highlight is one particular type of zombie which walks onto your lawn reading a news paper. The paper will block a few of your plants shots before being torn to pieces. This causes a huge question mark to appear over the zombies head before he flies into a nerd rage. "I was reading that".
The plants look similarly excellent, the sunflower bopping to and fro, the doom shroom increasing in size dramaticaly before exploding into a mushroom cloud. After a man eater eats a zombie it can be seen chewing contentedly while a limp arm dangles out of it's maw. There's always something fun to look at.
Another very welcome addition is an "almanac" which contains details of the various plants and zombies you encounter. Each has a humorous description and it's always fun to refer to the almanac once you encounter a new enemy or plant.
This is an excellent product and if anything above appeals to you I advise you to pick it up. Anyway, let's get back to the issue of challenge.
This game starts off easy and stays easy for a long time. I have yet to lose once. (That one time I forgot to pick an essential plant doesn't count). I have a feeling this was geared towards a more casual audience, which is fine but I would have really liked to be able to put up the difficulty a few notches.
I'm half way through the third stage and things are starting to heat up slightly but I've had to simply stop playing a few times because I was not being challenged at all.
Another issue is the resource mechanic. You get "sun energy" both from the sun and from your sunflowers. The issue here is that there is no limit to the number of sunflowers you can have so it's very easy to end up with a near limitless supply of energy at which point it becomes a cake walk. It's a pity because it is something that it would be very easy to limit. The tutorial mentioned that I should have at least three but I never build less than twelve. This also hurts the gameplay because the early part of every level is spent just building sunflowers. Limiting it to three would have made decisions about what to build much harder and improved the gameplay a lot.
Still, the difficulty is increasing and it is becoming more fun, not to mention there's a load of mini games and challenge modes I haven't even tried yet. So, it's hard to give out about this game too much. A definate recommendation for anybody looking for a laid back game to unwind with.
So, check out the great (I have a soft spot for this kitchy stuff) music video they made, and take the plunge. It's got zombies after all.
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