Plants vs. Zombies ($2.99, link) started life as a desktop tower defense game, and made the transition to an ultra-popular iPhone app. And it had the highest grossing iPhone game launch ever. So what is PvZ? The world has fallen to a cartoon zombie apocalypse, and you have to defend your home from their advances using only foliage. Each of the games 50 levels unlocks new content, so the difficulty level ramps up, but so does your plant-based arsenal.
The zombies attack along five rows of your backyard, and you need to harvest sunlight in order to grow attack foliage to stop them. This starts with pea-shooters and sun flowers (to boost your sun reserves), and rapidly expands into tower defense stalwarts—mines, walls, area effects attacks, status buffs and the like. Always plant related, of course. After ever 10 levels, the stage shifts slightly, changing the playing field. You start with your back-yard, then you have to defend it at night, then your pool, then the pool at night, and finally the rooftop.
If the harvest sunlight, grow plants method gets a bit boring, mini-games are scattered throughout to add some variety to the playstyle, and the final level of each stage provides you with a conveyor belt of plants in order to fight the zombie hordes.
I’m utterly in love with the graphics on PvZ. The zombies are adorable, and come in multiple variations—often to frustrate your defenses. The plants are all distinctive looking, and the designs manage to pack personality into just the few pixels each one takes up. The game is infused with a distinctive slapstick sense of humor, which is well appreciated.
I’m really struggling to find anything negative to say about PvZ, and nothing’s springing to mind. The loading screen when you launch is a bit long, and the level difficulty ramps up pretty quickly—but that’s not necessarily a downside. Some of the levels stretch on a bit long, so it’s not something you can just grab your phone and play for 3 minutes while waiting for a bus, but if you’ve got a bit of time free on your hands it’s perfect.
Conclusion
Plants vs. Zombies ($2.99, link) is a perfect example of the tower defense genre. It’s hilariously funny, easy to learn, but with huge amounts of content. With 50 levels, mini-games, achievements, and a free-play mode, you won’t be bored of it any time soon. If you enjoy tower defense games, and you haven’t picked it up yet, you’re doing yourself a disfavor. We highly recommend it, and give it an 8.7/10