Plants Vs. Zombies 2 Review

Prepare your plants, ready your gardening skills and book as much time off work as possible because Plants vs Zombies 2 has arrived.

The story is pretty basic. Your neighbour, Crazy Dave, eats his delicious taco. Loving it so much he decides to use his speaking time machine in the shape of an RV to go back in time and eat that EXACT taco again. However, Penny (his RV) manages to miss his destination by a good 4,500 years. Now Dave's stuck in ancient Egypt, alone, afraid and without his taco. Life's horrible for a crazy person.

Going under the name 'Plants vs Zombies 2: It's About Time', it damn well is about time as we've been waiting for this for a while now, Maybe something like 'does it live up to our expectations?

The short answer is no. But that doesn't stop the game from being good. The game is still fun to play, don't get me wrong, but not being what many people wanted it to be obviously lowers on our 'likeness' meter.

I may as well address the big problem right here; micro transactions. Whilst it isn't 'pay-to-win', the plants are very expensive and it somewhat cheapens the experience (ironically). I mean, come on, £3.99 for a Snow Pea. Really? Another annoying part of this is how none of the buyable plants are new; they are all plants from the original, making buying them seem rather pointless. You may as well buy the original PvZ on steam for yourself and a friend, because it's cheaper than buying all the plants in PvZ 2.

PopCap games have removed the beloved Zen Garden that everyone loved from the original. No longer shall you love and water your precious plants. Along with this, there is no Puzzle mode (Zombie and Vasebreaker). This is one of the things that kept most people longing to come back to the first PvZ so it's a shame Puzzle mode didn't make a return.

My final niggle is that there is no multiplayer. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I know several people that wanted a multiplayer mode added to PvZ, whether it was campaign co-op, survival or versus mode, a little planting with a friend surely would have spiced the game up a little bit.

Finally, onto the good points! As stated earlier, The game is still fun to play, despite the rant I had before. The simplicity of the game makes it a good one for just about anywhere and anytime really. Having a game be simple but still keep pressure on the player is a pretty hard task to accomplish, and fortunately, it was pulled off very nicely.

Although I mentioned earlier that there was no new plants that you could buy, there are however new plants that you can find and collect whilst on your journey. These range from the 'Bloomerang', which shoots a projectile down its row, hitting up to three targets before returning to him, damaging those three again, and 'Iceberg Lettuce', which freezes the first zombie that steps onto the same tile.

Something new which I like are the Power-ups. By using in-game currency, you can unleash a deadly attack. These glorious abilities allow you to pinch the zombies to death, fling them off-screen or electrocute them; all done with the power of your fingertips!

As well as new plants, they have also introduced new zombie types. Not only have they redesigned the original zombies to be themed with the levels they appear in, such as Ancient Egypt and The Wild West, but they have also created brand new zombies, such as a zombie which steals your sun, another one that throws bones which create tombstones, and there's even one with a torch that can instantly destroy any plant it touches except the Iceberg Lettuce.

Overall, while it may not be exactly what we wanted, EA have still managed to bring what I feel is an enjoyable experience. Plus it's free, why not just pick it up? Thankfully, it's not 'pay-to-win', and just because you can pay real money, doesn't mean you have to, meaning you can pick this up easily and it sure will last you longer than most other games.