current gaming

A couple days ago, a friend and I were sitting across the room from each other on two separate computers, both playing Plants vs. Zombies. As the repeating howl of the undead emanated from both of our speakers, I looked over at her and realized that the game was actually making us act quite similar to its green-skinned title characters…er, the zombies, that is. While the evil undead hunger for brains, all I’ve wanted for every moment of my day for weeks now is another long stretch drooling in front of my monitor playing this scarily addictive game.

Casual game developer PopCap has a long list of franchises popular among restless web browsers and soccer moms, many of which are extremely simple puzzle concepts or variations on games that have been around for a long time. In the last couple of years, though, the company has started to turn out some really unique and devastatingly addictive new games that take old concepts and spin them in completely unique directions. From Bookworm and Bookworm Adventures — which was doing the puzzle-meets-RPG thing before Puzzle Quest — to Peggle to even Bejeweled Twist, a surprisingly fresh take on their most well-worn game, the folks at PopCap have clearly been on some sort of creative streak.

Plants vs. Zombies trailer from Current Gaming

Plants vs. Zombies is the latest bit of brilliance to come out of that line-up. From the outset, it looks like an even more casual take on the tower defense genre, but as with so many of their games, a surprising amount of depth is hidden in that simplicity. Though the switch from the tower defense norm of being able to place towers anywhere as a line of enemies marches by to having the zombies come down a set series of rows may seem easier, it actually just means that you have a lot less space to work with and need to plan placement very strategically. And although you may begin the game with just a handful of plant-based weapons to choose from, by the end of the game you’ll be flipping through several dozen options, including some that only sprout in the evening, one that steals any metallic equipment the zombies might be using, and one that causes shots from other plants to light on fire and do more damage.

Your undead foes have a similar wide variety, forcing you to constantly mix up your strategies and try new things. The real genius of Plants vs. Zombies is that as fun as the moment-to-moment gameplay is, PopCap has designed the levels so that you’re rarely going to be doing the exact same build order over and over.

Things get even more mixed up in the bonus modes that get unlocked as you complete Adventure mode. These include super-hard levels, a zombie-themed version of Bejeweled, and even a mode where the tables are turned and you get to play as the zombies. The price tag may be tiny and the cynical may label it as “casual,” but there’s enough content packed in this game to keep players busy and engaged as long as most full-price retail console releases these days.

And therein lies the true horror of what appears to be PopCap’s dastardly master plan. They continue offering games that are priced and appear to be bite-sized, but those games somehow manage to suck days or even weeks from the lives of nearly everyone who touches them. Should this team ever want to take over the world, it’s only a matter of making sure they’ve got a new game of Plants vs. Zombie’s caliber out every month…and I fear they aren’t too far from that goal already!

Tags: Plants vs. Zombies, PopCap