Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Highly addictive"

Hello readers, I am sora_heart and I am here to bring you yet another review. I have decided to take a break from reviewing console games and go back to do a quick portable game review. Those who have read my reviews before, know I am a HUGE portable games fan. My first system was a little Gameboy Pocket packaged with The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening, and ever since, I have prefered my games to be portable over stationary. Years later, portable gaming is still going strong, so strong, that there are many ways to get your hands on games on the go. You have Sony's PSP, Ninendo's DS , and the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch devices. All 3 consoles are very different: The PSP tries to make a hardcore portable console, the DS tries to make use inivative new ways to bring hardcore and softcore cames together, and the Apple Devices are almost all geared for the casual audience. As much as I love my DS, I am tied between my iPhone and DS when it comes to my portable gaming needs. After finally finishing investing over 250 hours into Pokemon Platinum, I have finally decided to jump back onto my iPhone for the new school semester. I needed a new game and I had heard many claim this was one of the best games to come out during 2010, and because I was in a zombie killing mode, I decided to give this game a shot. Does Pop Cap live up to there name and deliver an experience everyone can enjoy, or did the Zombies eat them and left the game to rot?

Graphics - 8/10

As I always like to state in my reviews, I am not a graphics hoer at all. In fact, graphics mean very little to me in terms of how realistic it looks, but I am a fan of art style and atomosphere, and this game devilvers on that not. The zombies are very distinct and the plants are very imaginative. Aside from that and stylish menu however, the backgrounds are very dry and don't really move. I would of liked to see maybe some moving backgrounds or something on the lines of that, but the overal art style is very good. The atmosphere is a little bit of a mix up in my point of view. The whole game is meant to be funny and imaginative, yet they sometimes set you up into these spocky eviorments, which doesn't really work all the time. Aside from that however, the art style is quite nice and is very charming in a lot of ways.

*Special Extra Point* Humor - +1

I usually like to give extra points for anything I found unique, out of the ordinary, and works well, and this time it's found in the games overal humor! The game is charming, and the charm is found everywhere. Despite how bland the backgrounds are and what not, the game has charm everywhere, and it's funny. The game does a good job putting a smile on your face, thanks to the humor found from the Zombies, your crazy neighbor, and some of the extras stuck in the game. The musics add to the care-free atitude of the game as well, which is fine by me :)

Controls - 9/10

They work well, and it's kind of hard to screw up Tower Deffense controls, as it's just tapping the unit you want and then selecting a place to put it. The controls are pretty solid, but there have been a coupel times where a miss click has happened, and that can be deadly. Aside from that minor problem, controls work fine. It's probably due to my big hands why I had a miss-click, but that shouldn't be an excuse really....

Gameplay - 10/10

Just flat out Wow! It's a simple idea, yet it works so well and it's so deep. The basic idea of the game is to not let the zombies make it into your house, so to stop them, you have to place plants all around your hard to shot, block, and eat the zombies to stop them from coming into your house and eating you. There are a variety of plants to figth the Zombies with, as there is also a variety of Zombies to fight your plants. The game has a simple premise, yet with the right combo of plants, you can either make the game that much harder or easier on yourself. An exampe is there is a zombie in the game called The Zomboni, which rides a gaint Zamboni, and the easist way to beat these zombies is to place a spikeweed on the ground, which when coupled with a Wall-Nut (gaint potato looking plants that block off zombies), can be a deadly combo. See, little stratagys like that is what makes the game shine. For such a simple tower deffense game, it's very complicated and deep, something most games lack now a days. I praise this idea and I just have to say, once you get started playing this game, it's very hard to put down, and that is mostly thanks to the simple, yet deep game mechanics :)

Replay Value and Difficulty - 8/10

I feel it's pretty solid on both ends here. The Replay Value of this game is fairly high, as you can play through the story multipule times for more of a challange. The story mode has about 45-50 levels to it, with 3 different stages (your front yard, backyard, and roof) and a day and night variant of the stage. There is also Quick Play mode after you beat the story, which just has you basically create your own level to play on. I am a little dissapointed there isn't any form of either Survival Mode or High Score System for anything. It's quick dissapointing actually, as this game would have so much more replayablity if there was an incentive to replay a level in the adventure mode for a higher score. Still, the adventure mode should last you about 6-8 hours on your first play through, and the second playthrough is even more challanging and easily double the time, which is about a 15-20 hour game. Not to bad of a length for a $2 game. Certinally it isn't Final Fantasy 1 long, but pretty good. As for difficulty, it starts off pretty simple, but get's challanging later on. I personally think it's very balanced in difficulty, and it's easy to get sucked into it. Plus, the inclustion of profiles on single app is a gerat feature as well :).

Final Score - 9/10

The game is very solid with very little to complain about. It's safe to say Pop Cap has done it again. They have mixed complex gameplay with simple and unquie idea. You can tell how much it was making the game with all the energy put into the game, and it really shows and the player comes out very satisfied. Plus, for $2, that is a pretty good price. Overal, the game isn't perfect, but it's a fantastic distraction and great for pick up and play purposes, and there is enough here to keep you coming back for me. I am proud to give Plants vs. Zombies a 9 out of 10, for being a new expience that I can see myself coming back to plenty of times for at least the next 3 weeks till MvC3 comes out.

I am sora_heart and I hope you enjoyed this review. If you liked this, be sure to check out my blog and other reviews on my page. So until then, I will see you all in my next review, whenever and whatever that is... now, if you excuse me, I have to wait by my calander till MvC3 comes out xD.