What has not allready been said about this game?
This is the first Popcap game I have bought, and I have bought it twice now and something tells me that it will not be the last. See Plants vs Zombies was supposed to be a welcome gaming break for my girlfriend who for 5 years now has suffered due to a World of Warcraft addiction. She likes to play SIms 2, she likes Baldurs Gate 2 and other roleplaying games but can't stop the endless cycle of, " I don't know what to play", then just logging into WoW and grinding away.
I thought about the nice prices and instant purcahse of games on STEAM and figured I could gift her something and have her install STEAM to boot. My first thought was of Portal and why not? Awesome game for a decent price but she doesn't really get a hold of FPS games. Then I thought Peggle, but it seems a bit simple and with not much depth for her taste. Braid was a front runner for awhile until I remembred she enjoyed 'Desktop Tower Defence' and she is an avid gardener...ok maybe not an avid gardener but she IS vegetarian.
PvZ seemed like a wise choice.
After about 2 days of her laughing out loud and being throughly enthusiastic about this game, distracting me from my games with such phrases as "Come look at my garden", only to relise she was infact reffering to her Zen garden one of the extra games in this title. I found myself looking over more and more to see what was going on until I bit the bullet and just bought myself a copy to.
Steam says I have 27 hours played on this total over the last 2 weeks, I think it is off by about 10hours to be honest. I wasted my entire weekend, a sunny warm weekend, playing this.
It is that trial and error, that feeling that your defence is flawless only for something to happen that puts a hole in the entire thing and you tweak and you tweak until you have it just perfect and you can relax watching the zombies pile in.
I get this feeling that it doesn't want you to take it anyway seriously, the help menu is a perfect example of why this game is just a simple game for everyone that can use a mouse and keyboard fairly well. I love games that are unserious and just pure fun, it is just 100% fun to play and charming and in no way overbearing.
the later stages that are challenging are there for everybody else that want's to succeed and be the best they can be at a game, the later stages are not easy for the casual gamer or in anyway simple, they require a bit of tactical savy and a bit of gaming logic to be employed. The endless modes are also very difficult and challenging for the average gamer and I would say nigh on impossible for the casual.
Why didn't I rate 10? Deus Ex is a 10, Portal is a 10, Final Fantasy 7 is a 10. Great game this is, Masterpiece it is not. Each stage offers new ways for your tactical mind to use your plants in many different ways, but some of the stages seem to go at least 1-2 sections too long with no real switch of gameplay. Why not just consolodate them into 5 sections per stage with each section being a little longer and with a serious "will I make this final wave" factor such as, random zombie or no more sun or something to mix it up a little. I love this game but the dragging on feel gets a bit too much ESPECIALLY during the night stages.
That being said at least it has got a decent length for those who want a bigger game and the halfway bonus stages with the vase breaking and zombie bowling are a welcome break and give more variation.
To end I will fire off the usual bullet points of why you should own this or buy it as a gift for anybody you know with a PC. It is funny, bright and fun, cheerfull, varyingly difficult, lot's of things to unlock and keep you entertained, it can be full or part time for the gamer with lot's or no time. It is inexpensive as far as games go, and if your budget allows for no gaming expenses save that 1-2 games every so often, make this one of your games and you will find your money to time enjoyed is of more value.