Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare review

PvZ: GARDEN WARFARE TOWER DEFENCE

The tower defense element of the original game is worked in too. For the Plants there are plant pots scattered around the level in tactically useful positions. Any player plant can place an AI-controlled plant in these pots, such a Sunflower to heal nearby plant players, or a peashooter or gatling pea to shoot at enemies.

We can see some players getting annoyed if team mates plant the weakest specimens in the most important plant pots

For the zombies there are dirt piles scattered around, each of can spawn a zombie, but can’t be used again until that zombie dies. Again the player using the dirt pile can pick from a range of shambling dead, including those armoured with traffic cones on their heads, as well as exploding imps.

With a full server or players plus the various extra AI-controlled elements, there can be over 40 combatants scrapping over a single, small objective. The frame rate coped admirably amongst all this chaos and the big battles are a real blast.

PvZ: GARDEN WARFARE STICKERS

Those potted plants and zombie minions aren’t just handed out at the start of the level though. Instead they are a consumable, earned via sticker packs, which are bought with coins that you earn as you play.

There are no microtransactions in PvZ: GW but the coin-based unlocking certainly looks as though they were considered at some point; they could certainly be easily added later if EA ever decided to make a free-to-play version of the game. For now though they are thankfully absent and playing matches gives you plenty of coins to spend on cards.

The sticker pack system of upgrades is a fun idea but also a potentially problematic one

The packs range in cost from 1,000 up to 40,000. The cheapest pack contains five consumable item cards, though a single card might give you say five of one potted plant type or zombie to use in game. More expensive packs contain character parts for the class variants, collect five such matching stickers in your stickerbook and you can then use that variant.

Finally there are upgrades for each class, which provides bonuses such as faster reload times and greater damage for certain weapons. These don’t feel right though, as they are purely bonuses, have no downsides and are all equipped automatically for the class in question. The upgrades don’t provide any interesting choices, but instead simply make long-term players more powerful than newcomers.

Your achievements, upgrades and variants are all recorded in your stickerbook

Another cause for concern is that a team with better minions, who is willing to expend them, will have a significant advantage over a less well-equipped side. Again if the minions were balanced, with just tactical variations, it would be better, but some are obviously superior to others and players could feel the odds in a game are stacked against them from the outset.

PvZ: GARDEN WARFARE – CASUAL OR HARDCORE?

With so much going on, you might think this all a bit much for anyone who is a dedicated shooter fan, but Popcap has streamlined the genre in the places. PvZ:GW has no additional melee attacks, no secondary weapons, no sprint button, no ladders to climb and no mini-map to keep an eye on. The latter is partly compensated for by onscreen icons, with any enemies your teammates spot automatically marked on your view. There’s also an aim assist with light and heavy options for those who struggle with aiming.

With abilities like the Garlic drone there’s plenty to get your head around in the game

It’s enviably pick-up-and-play then, and each of the class’s three abilities drip fed out over the first few plays with them, giving players the chance to appreciate each in turn. The abilities are introduced by a short cinematic too, so you get some idea of their use. Beyond this, you can level up by completing challenges which give you bonus coins to spend.

PvZ: GARDEN WARFARE BOSS MODE

Players of the touchscreen versions of PvZ are provided with something familiar to play with, in the form of boss mode. This is a direct take-off of Battlefield 4’s commander mode, where you can use the Xbox’s Smartglass system to provide aerial support to other players (you can also control it using . You must collect sunshine that drops across the screen, and then use to drop radar stations, revive downed comrades or drop airstrikes on enemies.

Boss mode lets you support the plant troops from Crazy Dave’s Camper Van

It’s very simplistic, there’s no options to give commands to other players here, but a team with a boss will certainly do far better than one without, as the abilities are incredibly useful when applied effectively. However, doing so is a little dull, so its best reserved for when you a have friend over who can then join in on a tablet.

PvZ: GARDEN WARFARE GARDEN OPS

As well as the main multiplayer battles, four plants can team up online, or two in split-screen mode, to take on 10 waves of zombies. Planting minions is key here to help shore up your defences, possibly too key in fact as our success seemed to revolve around our willingness to deploy the best AI plants to support us.

There are five maps, but you can choose from three defensive points on each, providing quite a lot of variety, and there’s plenty of different enemies attacking too (including series favourite the yeti). On normal difficulty we quickly got through all 10 waves, so maybe the harder difficulties will have to be explored. Still, between the immediate ease and the unsettling effect on difficulty of the planted plants, this didn’t seem to live up to Popcap’s gold standard for creating something finely tuned and immediately engaging.

PvZ: GARDEN WARFARE CONCLUSION

With all the characters, classes, variants, AI minions and the boss mode, there’s plenty to get your head around. Combine all these and the potential strategies are pretty huge. It’s a game which, with the right ongoing balancing, should provide a lot of memorable battles, but without requiring razor-sharp reflexes

It would be a shame if so-called hardcore gamers passed PvZ:GW by due to its license and colourful presentation. There’s a lot of fun to be had from this enticing blend of Battlefield 4 and Team Fortress 2. There’s plenty of depth on offer too, with loads of stuff to unlock, plus you can pick it up for a very reasonable £30 on Xbox One too.

If you’re tired of the endless sci-fi and military shooters and fancy even a fairly brief dalliance with something more fun, more colourful and less twitchy then Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare is a good buy. It misses out on an award as there’s only really one mode that engaged us, Gardens and Graveyards, plus we’re concerned about the unbalancing effects of the weapon upgrades and more powerful minions.

Still, there’s certainly a lot of fun to be had here, and we’ll certainly be playing a lot more over the next couple of weeks. It’s a shame though that the game didn’t come out before Christmas, giving us more time with it before the deadline that Titanfall will represent to many.