Game Dev Story

The Short


Pros
- Silly, addicting little game simulating running a game-making company
- Has a massive amount of variety, factors, and depth when it comes to making games
- While more a game than a simulation itself, the core things work wonderfully
- Seriously, you think you are going to play for five minutes, and next thing you know it's been four hours
- Allows you to start a new game with the (majority) of your upgrades intact
- Parodies of real-world consoles and development stages are entertaining and cute
- I made a "Bikini Kart Racer" on the Game Boy that sold three million copies and got two sequels on a Blu-Ray home system. Game of the year.
- Also, you can hire a monkey

Cons
- If you are Min/Max gamer, this game will ruin you
- Also, if you are not someone who plays games a lot, the complete lack of instruction can be annoying
- It hides most of its math, etc. behind the cute visuals, so it can be hard to know why a game succeeded or failed
- The first hour or so you only make games that suck, which can be discouraging
- Making your own console is so obscure I'm fairly certain nobody has figured it out without reading a guide
- Doesn't use the full iOS/Android screen, and doesn't have retina display support

Yes, I made a wrestling MMO called Wrestle Online. Game of the Year. 

The Long

Before I begin it's worth noting that my wife already reviewed most of Kairosoft's Games on her blog. She's played more of them than I have, and while I've spent at least a little time in all of them, all in all Game Dev Story is really the only one that I couldn't stop playing and spent enough time with to review. Point being: they make some excellent iOS and Android games, all in the style of the old "Tycoon" games, and are worth checking out if you own an device.

But Game Dev Story is my favorite. Here's why.

My game company, Hacktavision, making the big bucks. 

Game Dev Story is about as meta as at gets. A game simulating game making? How quaint! But beneath the colorful visuals and deceivingly simple interface, Game Dev Story is a deep and complex simulation game, one that does a damned good job of sucking all your time away when you least expected it to.

The point is simple: you have fifteen years to make the biggest game company in the world. You start of small in (what I assume) is around 1984-1985, with the NES being the newest big thing. You start with just four employees, but as your games get better and you start winning awards and getting fanmail you'll move to a bigger office and hire more people. All the while new game consoles are coming out (which are entertaining parodies of real-world systems; I always wanted to make a Virtual Boy game) so you have to manage licencing fees in order to keep up with the trend (protip: just build Game Boy games. Seriously, that thing was around forever and always relevant). 

It's funny because it's "Intendro"

So how do you make a game? Well, Game Dev Story streamlines the process. Essentially you start with a limited number of genres and styles, and you mix-and-match two (like "Bikini" and "MMO"), pick your game system, and start development. It always happens in three stages: design, graphics, and sound, where you can pick employees to give it "stats" boosts. Every game also has five key stats: Gameplay, creativity, graphics, sound, and bugs. The amount you earn during the allotted "design time" (no vaporware here; your games are always released on a deadline) depends on employees, and its always followed by bugtesting (or you can just ship the game buggy and take a hit to your scores). Then you sit back and watch the profits roll in! Or design your next game. Which would be smart. 

There's just so much to do in this game it's almost overwhelming. If you are low on cash you can just do side-jobs for other companies to earn the money to fund your next big project. Advertising is important, as you have to cater to both genders as well as a wide range of ages. Consoles rise and fall with market share, and putting a game out on the more popular ones is smart but expensive. Employees need to be trained and leveled up, earning access to new genres and types, but you also need to cycle through them in order to make the best team. Picking a right genre/type combination (like Action RPG + Fantasy) will level it up, earning you points to put into making your game have a niche appeal, be more accessible, etc. Sell well enough and a game can earn a direct sequel, boosting sales but if the sequel sucks the franchise dies. Lastly, you'll receive fanmail, be featured on various gaming magazines, compete to win various Game of the Year awards, and go to E3 every year. Yeah, all in a little silly handheld game. Nuts. 

Fantasy RPGs are expensive to develop, but can move a TON of units. 

It's extremely addicting, mostly because you are constantly being rewarded. While it is possible to screw up and run out of money completely, usually you are just teetering on the brink between financial success and ruin, making every game's sales absolutely necessary for your company to survive. But, seeing as it is smart to be designing your next game while the previous is selling, you'll be watching sales while working on Bikini Online 2.0 or Guitar Hero Space Shooter. It's very hard to stop making just "one more game," and this was the first iOS game I literally played from 100% battery life down to 0%. Hours and hours sitting in the BYU Library when I should have been studying. Whoops.

Like most Kairosoft Games, however, it has one rather big issue: the in-game tutorials are almost nonexistent. The game gives you the bare basics on how the game works, directing you in how to make your first game, but never bothers telling you how to make a game good or which stats are preferable for which stages of the design process or anything like that. So your first run you might fumble about for the first decade while trying to get your bearings, though it does make the game more intense when you are struggling against total financial and company-wide ruin. Most of your upgrades carry over to new games, so your second playthrough will almost always be better than the first. Just...don't try to Min/Max your stats in this, trust me. It's possible but extremely difficult and has a hefty amount of luck involved. It'll kill you. Seriously.

"Worked really hard?" For 1 Gameplay and 42 Creativity? Somebody needs a motivational poster!

There are a few other little niggles. You can only have one save aside from the autosave, meaning sharing the game is impossible. While it does try to cover a very wide scope of the video game industry, some stuff is neglected. Why, if I make a game console, do I not receive royalties from people making games from it? Why is the PC always the worst console throughout the whole game (if you want a bigger challenge, try beating the game only making PC games. It's hard!)? Why is the best console I can make only 64 Bit, when I can put a Blu-Ray player in there? Why can't I influence market share if I consistently put awesome, high selling games out on a failing system? How on earth did I sell 10 million copies of Ninja: A Noire Shinobi on my home console when I only sold 5 million consoles? While the little touches are what make this game, I couldn't help but think there should be more of them.

Graphics are also pretty unimpressive. On both Android (my Kindle Fire) and my iPhone the game looks blurry and blown up. It also is the only Kairosoft game that doesn't use the whole screen; it's just a rectangle in the middle. I understand these are ports of Japanese PC games, but it kind of looks bad. While it doesn't matter because the graphics are really just placeholders for the mad math going on in the background, it wouldn't have hurt to have updated it for widescreen and retina display. 

"Ponies vs Zombies" is going to sell out.

As it stands, Game Dev Story is fantastic. If you have any interest in the video game industry at all, this representation slash parody of the industry is hilarious and clever. But even if you don't, the core game here is so addicting and fun it's worth checking out regardless. It'll suck you in fast, trust me, and the minute you end you'll want to start over and do it again. Kairosoft is making a name for their fantastic tycoon games on mobile devices, and Game Dev Story is no exception.

It runs at $4 on iOS and $2.50 on Android normally, but every time a new Kairosoft game is put out (which is usually one a month) they tend to discount the previous ones, so if the tag looks a little high you can always hold out. I paid $6 for it when it was the only Kairosoft game on the market, and I don't regret it in the slightest. Fun, silly, and with plenty of tongue-in-cheek, Game Dev Story is downright fantastic.

Now port the second one, Kairosoft! Hurry up!

Four out of five stars. 

This pretty much sums it up. 

Zuma's Revenge

The Short


Pros
- Follow-up to the excellent and addicting Zuma game
- Adds many more levels, a handful of new powerups, and new game modes
- Adventure mode, challenge mode, gauntlet modes, and more make this a robust collection
- Stages have weird boss fights the fit the gameplay style (oddly enough...)
- Graphically superior to its predecessor
- Better learning curve overall, though it does get very difficult by the end
- Makes a fantastic phone/tablet game

Cons
- Core gameplay is identical to Zuma
- Still no actual mini-games aside from the boss battles
- Boss battles can range in difficulty from annoying and difficulty to extremely easy, seemingly at random

Yep. More balls.

The Long

So Zuma was pretty good, it just lacked variety. It also had an insane learning curve that turned some people away. Luckily, PopCap seemed to figure that out, because Zuma's Revenge pretty much fixes every issue I had with Zuma, and in the best way possible. So since this is technically the third review of games using this same gameplay mechanic, I'm going to try and be brief. 

Also, balls.

You know he likes it. 

So Zuma's Revenge is Zuma. You are a still a frog in the center of a long pathway of slowly-moving balls, and your goal is to make three or more balls of the same color match so they EXPLODE. Power-ups are randomly distributed throughout the chain and have to be gotten within a time limit or they fade from existence forever. Bonus points (in the form of fruit instead of coins this time) appear every once in a while in the corners, helping fill up your Zuma meter faster and ending the level. There's a boatload of stages to play with hardly any repeats this time around, which is excellent. So it's still Zuma. What's different?

Probably the best change is the increased variety in stages. Some stages have multiple positions the frog can be in (see top screenshot), requiring you to "hop" between them quickly in order to get the best position to land a shot. These can quickly become frantic attempts to not die as you can only hit part of the chain from either position, requiring lots of movement. The other mix-up in variety is the Luxor inspired stages, where the frog is simple on the bottom of the screen and can go back and forth. It's a good change, incorporating the best bits of the games of this type, and it keeps stuff fresh.

Then you have...boss fights?

The game also inexplicably has boss fights, which...are actually pretty decent. Usually the goal is to get through a chain walling off the guy to smack him with a ball, though some require a bit more tactics (one you have to blow up explosive balls near him to damage him, which is a nice touch). They aren't particularly difficult, to be honest, and though they shoot stuff at you it only serves to disorient; you still die from having the balls reach the end of the stage. I found these diversions a fun thing to look forward to at the end of a section, but not particularly enthralling. So in short: good, but not world-shattering.

There's a handful of new powerups, and they axed all the crappy ones from Zuma

The game looks very good graphically. While this isn't pushing polygons or anything (it runs on my iPhone and my wife's computer, so anything can handle it) it has a very pleasing art style, even more so than the first game. It's got a hefty resolution, vibrant colors and effects, and the stages themselves look really good. I would argue this is PopCap's best looking game by a long shot, with tons of visual flair. It's just a colorful joy to look at, and leaves an impression.

Sound is also excellent, with all dialogue in text (but it's pretty witty). The music is good but unnecessary; I played most of this game on my phone with the sound off and still enjoyed at much as anything else. 

If there's anything frogs like, it's going to the beach to get a tan. 

While this has been a sort of brief review, let me get to the kicker: you should probably buy this game. You should especially buy this game if you own an iPhone or iPad, because that is by far the best version of this game. I had a copy of Zuma on my really old Windows Phone that used a stylus, and it was easily the most played game on it. Zuma's Revenge on iOS is absolutely fantastic, retaining everything from the PC original while having the added benefit of the sublime touch controls. It's extremely fun and an excellent time waster.

There's my plug. Because I really do think this game is awesome.

Plus it has the Zuma voice that goes "ZUUUUUUUUUUMA." 10/10.

Zuma was one of my favorite PopCap games, but Zuma's Revenge blows it out of the water. Again, at $2 on iOS that's a freaking steal, and $10 on PC isn't that bad either. It's easily one of my favorite PopCap games, and shouldn't be missed. If you enjoy your casual games to be secretly hardcore, with your puzzle games having a hefty chunk of action and a lot of difficulty, Zuma's Revenge will surprise and delight you. 

Highly recommended. 

Four out of five stars. 

And this'll be the last review about shooting balls for a while, I swear. 

Peggle

The Short


Pros
- Fun, addicting game that is both like pinball and plinko while being neither
- Has probably the best visual/audio feedback for winning in a game, ever
- Tons of different animals with a variety of powerups
- Large number of bonus stages after beating the main game
- Fantastic for a mobile iOS or Android device

Cons
- Heavily based on randomness
- Some stages can feel unfair due to random powerup layouts, ball behavior, etc.
- So addicting you might forget to do other things. Like eat. Or sleep.

It's time for another game about balls!

The Long

There's something about PopCap games that make you forget to do important things, some of which are necessary for daily survival. What, make dinner? I can just eat chips and dip; I'm sure I'll get hungry later. What, sleep? Eh, I wasn't going to fall asleep before 2:00 am anyway. What, breathe? Well, your skin absorbs some oxygen, I'm sure my lungs will figure something out if it's really necessary. And so on.

Peggle might be the worst offender at soul-sucking time wasting out of all of PopCap's games. Yes, even worse than Bejeweled. Essentially a simple physics game with hardly any depth to speak of, Peggle still manages to suck you in with its colorful visuals, great sound effects and music, and the "one more try" or "one more level" problem that makes it so gamers forget to bathe. And eat. And breathe.

So...let's take a look at one of the most addicting games of all time. And no, I'm not talking about World of Warcraft.

They actually put Peggle IN World of Warcraft. As if you needed another excuse to never get off your computer. 

Peggle is a very simple game that pretends it has strategy, when really it requires a hefty dose of luck. Essentially, each level you are presented with a game board that has strategically placed pegs and blocks scattered about (usually in some form of artistic pattern matching a theme). Of these, a good chunk will be colored orange. Your mission (and you'll choose to accept it, until 3:00 in the morning) is to knock out all the orange pegs with the balls allotted. You shoot it from the top of the screen, and it goes bouncing around like the Plinko game from The Price is Right.

Drew Carry, your career has really gone downhill. 

It holds a few tricks. On the bottom of the screen is a container that goes back and forth; manage to land the ball in that and you get a free ball. The more orange pegs that are hit or gone increase a combo meter, which subsequently gives you more points and if you earn a set number of points with a single ball you'll earn another extra ball. Lastly, each stage has two green pegs that provide power-ups based on your character of choice. This can include improved targeting, making the container that moves around the bottom bigger, flippers like a pinball machine, etc. But you'll just always use the dragon's "Fireball" powerup, because it is easily the best.

You may have zen, owl, but you lack the dragon's firepower. Literally. Firepower. HA. 

This concept may sound stupidly simple, and that's because it is. Some pegs move about in set patterns, stages get harder quick, but overall the game's simplicity never changes. Orange and green pegs are randomized even on the same stages, meaning no two games are exactly the same. In time you figure out the physics well enough to calculate to the second or maybe third bounce, but after that it's all luck of the draw.

So how on earth does a game with such a random element work? Well...without dissecting it beyond what is necessary (read: at all) it's the mix of an illusion of control and belief that skill will sway the results along with the random results that keeps you playing. Being able to think you are actually improving (and you do...though you hit a ceiling after a very short amount of time) keeps you going, the new power-ups helping with that as well, but the crazy randomness gives you the idea that "next game will go better." If it were pure skill it would be stressful, and if it were pure randomness it wouldn't have a point. The mix here is a slippery slope, but Peggle pulls it off perfectly.

Then this happens. 

What sells the game, however, it its over-the-top, overly rewarding aesthetic. The game gives you bonus points for just about anything, from long shots to trick shots to just generally doing stuff that it thinks is cool. And by "doing stuff" I mean "having stuff happen randomly 90% of the time." The flashy, crazyness reminds me of the allure of well-made pinball machines, but all this pales when compared to what happens when you are down to the last orange peg. Every shot towards it will cause the camera to zoom in for a crazy slo-mo shot, way more intense than should be allowed for a game about shooting balls at pegs. If you miss a crowd goes "awww..." but if you hit the thing it EXPLODES and "EXTREME FEVER" blasts across the screen, on fire, while a wild version of "Ode to Joy" choruses into your ears. It's...totally bananas.

YOU WIN. CAN YOU TELL?

Honestly, even people who don't like Peggle (all four of you) remember this stage finale, that happens every time you win. While it's overexaggurated to the point of parody, there's no denying there's some sort of euphoric elation and sense of accomplishment every time stupid "Ode to Joy" starts swelling from my speakers. Like the massive amounts of positive feedback the game gives you, this game-ending blast of orchestration is so absurd yet rewarding you want to see each stage to an end, just to hear the song and see the rainbows and explosions again.

You got a lot of characters, but Cinderbottom is the only one you need. 

Seeing as this is a PopCap puzzle game, it is also loaded to the brim with bonus content. The single-player is reasonably long as you go through a variety of stages with all ten characters, each level tailored to their unique skills. After that you can replay any stage with a character of your choosing, making some much easier and others harder. You have challenges where they put more orange pegs on the same maps, as well as a handful of other levels that also include challenges. Duel mode allows you to play back and forth with a friend or bot to compete for score, though the addition of the massive bonus pool if you get Extreme Fever by hitting the last peg makes it kind of really unbalanced. 

As stated, the graphics and sound are cartoony and simple, but work because they are so visually appealing. It's hardly a graphical powerhouse, but the absurd levels of particle effects, explosions, and rainbows are enough to make your eyes bleed.

I am the king of Peggle.

Is Peggle worth looking into? Well, that depends on how much you hate having free time. Despite it's simplicity, PopCap continues to pander digital crack in the form of their casual games, and Peggle is no exception. It's out on pretty much everything (game consoles, phones, World of Warcraft, you name it) and due to its simplistic nature runs well on all devices as well. Considering the iOS version is only $2, I'd suggest picking it up on that platform personally, though the Steam version also has a tendency to go on sale.

While it's easy to dismiss Peggle as a stupid game, it is actually quite a bit of fun in an addicting, somewhat shallow way. Regardless, it's the packaging and the experience that totally sells it, so if you are ready to take the plunge hold your breath and dive in.

Just remember to come up for air. Literally.

Four out of five stars. 

Thanks, hippie.

Swords and Soldiers HD

The Short


Pros
- Simple to pickup 2D RTS game with a surprising amount of depth
- Play as three distinct races: Vikings, Aztecs, or Chinese
- Decent-length campaigns and challenges keep the value up
- Has a nice, cartoony look about it
- Story is inane stupidity that perfectly compliments the goofy visuals
- Balancing units, magic, mana, and gold can get complicated quick
- Surprisingly addicting, plays best on a tablet (Kindle Fire, in my case)

Cons
- Does look a bit like a glorified flash game
- Some levels can be unfairly difficult
- Computer/tablet versions don't have split screen multiplayer
- Voices get annoying pretty quick

Time for some silly slaughter

The Long

Swords and Soldiers, despite having perhaps the most unimaginative name in the world, is a surprisingly competent indie RTS. And while I say "RTS" I could also say it's a Tower Defense game, or even a Reverse Tower Defense game. It combines elements from all these genres, while still being both simple enough to easily be picked up by your mom, while complex enough that some genuine strategy is required. It's RTS-lite, on a 2D plain, and it makes for an excellent game to pass the time with (especially on your phone or tablet).

Vikings vs Aztecs? Fighting over BBQ sause? Alright...

The core goal of the game is simple: kill the other base. In order to do that, you'll have to build miners (who gather gold automatically from nearby gold mines), construct towers (on pre-determined spots), learn and use magic, and amass an army. There's about five distinct units for each civilization, and while that doesn't sound like a lot, they vary so differently that it's more than enough. You also have around four-five spells at your disposal, ranging from a poison bomb, a heal beam, or even summoning Thor's mighty hammer as a temporary tower. 

The strategy come with the fact that most of the game (aside from unit building and spells) is automatic. Constructed units will blindly run towards the other base (usually to the right in single player), attacking whatever they find along the way until they die. While there are a few paths that split and then rejoin, for the most part you are just sending people to their deaths en masse. Since units have cooldowns, you'll have to strategies which ones to send when, and then use magic to manipulate the order they arrive to battle. Be prepared for lots of units dying and plenty of wars of attrition as you try to outsmart and outmaneuver your equally competent enemies. 

The tech tree is limited, but it is enough. 

The main strategy comes with magic. As stated you have a moderately sized arsenal, but spells can easily turn the tie of power. A properly placed heal on a Viking berserker, for instance, can have him mowing down three or four units for the cost of his one. Hitting a group of enemy miners with a poison bomb can destroy the economy long enough to get a push in. Mind controlling a powerful unit can easily turn the tide of battle. Spells cost mana, which regens automatically (and can be upgraded to regen faster for gold), so you can't just spam spells and hope you'll win. There's a fine balance between when to use offensive and defensive magic, one Swords and Soldiers skirts very well. 

Stuff can get hectic real quick.

The game wouldn't work if it were unbalanced, and luckily Swords and Soldiers pulls a Starcraft and balances its unique trio of civilizations perfectly. Vikings tend to be slower, more expensive, but also more powerful. Aztecs use unique unit abilities like poison, raising skeletons, or units that rush to overwhelm. And the Chinese have multiple immunities as well as cheap AOE damage, making them quite formidable as well. It's a good balance, and since the single-player campaign has you switch between the three of them, you can test them all and see which best suits you. 

The PSN and Wii versions have single-box multiplayer, which is cool. 

The single-player is hearty and has plenty for you to do before you'll get bored of it. On the Wii and PS3 (the PS3 has Move support) you can play single-screen multiplayer, which is great, but I don't have that version so I can't attest to its quality (I'm assuming it's mad fun based on the single player). Tablet and phone versions as well as the PC version don't support this, unfortunatly, though the PC version does have online multiplayer through Steam. 

Graphically the game's comedic, cartoony style is vibrant, endearing, and fun to look at. While I will admit it does look a bit like a high-end flash game, I'm willing to forgive it because of its zany art style and colorful cast of unique characters. Music and sounds are decent, though I got really sick of hearing the "I looooooove gold!" voice from the Viking miners whenever you build them. 

For an asking price of $10, Swords and Soldiers is worth looking into.

I personally picked up this game from the (currently going) Humble Indie Bundle for Android II, which you can get this one for beating the minimum. I heartily suggest getting it, especially if you have an Android device. It plays really well on my Kindle Fire (finally! Something to use that stupid Kindle Fire for!) and the touch-screen controls feel much more tactile than the mouse and keyboard ones (and I'd imagine playing it with a controller or Wii-Mote would be a bit harder). It's a very simple game that gets complex (the best kind!) and its charm and fine-tuned balance certainly sell it. For a normal going rate of $10 on the consoles (and with added single-seat multiplayer) I'd say to certainly give it a look. 

Four out of five stars. 

I will only play as the Vikings. Why? RED BEARDS. 

Cogs

The Short

Pros

- Similar to the game Pipe Dreams with a good mix between gear and slider puzzles

- Fifty puzzles

- Lots of goals including speed, moves used, etc. to be ranked on

- Game has a cool, steampunk-esque theme

- Looks good on PC, iOS, or Android. Fun phone game. 

Cons

- Game gets really hard really fast

- Later puzzles are unlocked based on skill on previous ones, which means you might have to replay some for better times/moves

- Uses the same basic premise for puzzles throughout the whole game

If you like Steampunk and puzzles, I have a game for you. 

The Long

I'm pretty sure I own Cogs on every single platform it's available for. I got it as a free app of the day on iOS, and it seems to pop up in indie bundles all the time (so I probably have bought it more than once). It was weird that I only recently got around to playing it, especially since I love everything Steampunk and I also love...puzzles? 

Anyway, Cogs is pretty good, despite it's relative simplistic core elements.

Puzzles start easy enough. Don't be fooled. 

Cogs' core concept is simple: slide tiles with gears (or pipes) around until everything is connected and whatever device you are working on can fly away or whatever. It's a concept anybody can figure out, since it's just sliding pieces about, but it does a decent job of mixing it up. Gears make way for pipes, and some have to be activated at exactly the same time or without crossing, and thus things get tricky fast. After about five tutorial levels you'll be in the meat of the game, and trust me when I say this game gets hard.

Getting this puppy airborn requires keeping an eye on multiple grids at once. 

Gears of different sizes and levels get thrown into the mix, and then gears with pipes and having to solve one, two, three, or more puzzles at once (either with pieces having gears on both front and back or solving around a cube, etc.). While the core concepts remain constant, they do a lot with very little. It's a fun challenge, and the whole "one more puzzle..." here thing kicks in pretty bad. Until you get stuck. Then you get angry. 

Stuff is getting crazy. 

There's a Challenge mode as well as an "Inventor" mode, which is basically just harder puzzles. Since later puzzles are unlocked based on your speed, moves used, and previous puzzles solved, if you suck really bad you might have to replay some, which is never fun. Why not just have them all unlocked from the start? 

If you are into these kinds of puzzles, though, Cogs is worth a look. 

There really isn't much more to say about Cogs. It has a beautiful presentation that (as already stated) has a distinct Steampunk feel about it. The background music is nice, the graphics look good throughout, and it provides a decent challenge. At $10 on Steam, if you really like these kinds of puzzlers you can't go wrong, and it's even cheaper on iOS (where it looks just as good and plays better with touch controls).

A very solid indie puzzle game. A little more variety wouldn't have hurt, but it still works based on what it has here. Four out of five stars. 

And the mobile version looks good too! You can't go wrong here. 

Plants vs Zombies

The Short


Pros
- Addicting twist on the tower defense genre
- Easy to learn but very difficult to master
- Dozens of plants to choose from
- Charming aesthetic, from the zombies to the plants to the kickin' soundtrack
- A metric butt-ton of game modes including survival, minigames, puzzles, zen garden, and more
- Seriously, this game has more content than three $60 retail games
- Crazy Dave is awesome. The ending song is awesome.
- Horrendously addicting

Cons
- Those damned bungee zombies.
- Unlocking stuff costs lots of money, which lead to some awful microtransactions on the iOS version
- Co-op / Vs modes only available on the PSN and XBLA version
- "Create a Zombie" only available on the PC Game of the Year version
- WHERE THE CRAP IS PLANTS VS ZOMBIES 2?!

If' there's anything zombies hate, it's photosynthesis

The Long

Let's just get this out of the way up front: Plants vs Zombies is pretty much my wife's most favorite video game ever. She's beaten it all the way through at least six times, maybe more since she has it on her iPod touch now. We own this game on every system known to man (except PSN, because we have it on PC, Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, and XBLA) and for some reason neither of us have gotten bored of it yet. Yes, I'm talking about a tower defense game that's grid-based, where plants battle zombies. Really.

Though it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. PopCap is pretty much rolling in fat cash (and is still an independent developer...so wild) at this point. These are the guys who invented Bejeweled, ok? They also made the Zuma, Bookworm, and tons of other simple, addicting games. Which is why when I first heard of Plants vs Zombies I shrugged it off. Bejeweled? You mean that game my mom plays? Please. 

Zombies also hate chlorophyll. 

It wasn't until we booted it up during a boring evening on vacation that we realized the truth: Plants vs Zombies is freaking amazing. I remember Destructoid gave it a 10/10 and I thought they'd lost their freaking minds. Well guess what, it was totally justified. Plants vs Zombies is an addicting, content rich tower defense game that is both extremely accessible and immensely deep. And here you thought it was just a simple, casual game. 

Plants vs Zombies doesn't do anything particularly new (aside from being freaking incredible) to the tower defense genre. You are given a 9x7 grid (your lawn, though eventually you go to the backyard pool and even on the roof) which you can plant anything on. All plants (except one "super" plant) only take one spot, so you can essentially have a maximum of 63 plants. Zombies come in from the right to individual lanes, never swapping unless (again) you use a particular plant to force them to bounce around like that. You plant your attacking plants on the left and try to kill the zombies before they reach your brains on the left (safely hidden inside the house). It's extremely simple; even my mother could figure it out.

Don't tell my mother I bad-mouthed her in my review. I love you mom!

To plant stuff you need "suns," which you gather by either planting sunflowers (with their adorable grins) or picking them up during daytime levels (which means they were literally dropped from the sun). Having to click on suns keeps it interactive, even during the boring beginning stages of the levels, where you are trying to gain a steady income as fast as possible. After that you have basic pea shooters which will slowly fire on advancing zombies, wall-nuts (which also have adorable grins, just look at them!) that block the zombie's paths, and more. The game keeps introducing a new plant nearly every level, which in turn adds a new strategy to attempt. The pacing is exactly perfect, and by the end you'll be juggling nine different plants, fighting off tons of zombies, and it'll all be completely intuitive. IT may look overwhelming at first, but Plants vs Zombies hits the sweet spot: it's never too hard, and it's never boring. And it rewards you just enough to make you keep on playing for hours and hours on end.

You go from "single, shuffling idiot" to "28 Days Later" pretty quickly

PopCap's other games had the benefit of being straight puzzlers with no determinable goal other than to waste time, meaning they only got old when you were finished with them. Plants vs Zombies, on the other hand, has a definite "end" to it (after maybe 4-5 hours of zombie-pruning mayhem) which would have slowed other developers. They might have just called it good (4-5 hours for a $10-$15 is still a good deal), or maybe have thrown in some junk side content or tacked on competitive multiplayer just for kicks. But this is freaking PopCap, so they go nuts. (or dare I say...Wall-nuts?)

This game has more bonus content than any game ever made in the existence of video games. This is not even an exaggeration. Right after you beat the main game, you can go back and play through it again, but this time with Crazy Dave (your lunatic neighbor) picking your first three plants for you (and often picking garbage, which adds to the challenge). You can collect pots of plants in the single player mode now that you've beaten the game, which are put in your zen garden and are raised to either sell or collect. You have more seed slots to unlock for levels, tons more plants and plant upgrades, and more areas for your zen garden. You have somewhere around 25-30 minigames, all of which are excellent and unique (Zombie Bejeweled is one of my favorites). You have wave based survival modes on all the different landscapes. You have a puzzle mode where you play as the zombies trying to get through the plants. You have a vase-smashing puzzle game that can be quite the challenge (both the puzzles and urn levels have a bunch of pre-set levels as well as infinite modes, and the survival mode can be infinite too). 

All this in a game that started life at a $15 price tag. Normal $60 games don't give this much crap out!

Hecks yes, Beghouled is rad. 

I'll say it again: this game is extremely addicting. The gameplay is tight, has tons of variety, and the tons of modes are just icing on the cake. All this content would be useless if the underlying game sucked, and it most certainly doesn't. You thought a 9x7 grid would mean the game was gimped and stupid? Well you are gimped and stupid, valued reader! Because this game is better than any other tower defense game ever made. Yes, I just brought that to the table. Prove me wrong, dear reader (in the comments, please :P)!

There are a few nitpicks I have. PopCap keeps releasing this dang thing on any platform that can even remotely support it, often adding stuff each time. For example, the XBLA Version, while suffering from not having mouse controls (which it still works quite well on a controller, by the way) does add full co-op support for every part of the game, which is really cool because I could finally play alongside my wife. It also adds a vs mode that's more like a competitive puzzle game, where one person plays as the plants and the other the zombies. It's pretty fun too, but neither of these modes are on any other versions besides the PSN and XBLA version.

The same goes for "Create a Zombie" mode, which is admittedly just a gimmick bonus, but that's only in the Game of the Year version on the PC. Sad times.

The flavor text for the plants and zombies is hilarious too (screenshot from iOS version)

The iOS and Android versions also have an annoyance: in-game microtransactions. Unlike the PC/XBLA/PSN versions, the minigames on iOS and Android require in-game currency to buy. Which you can earn pretty quickly if you know how to manipulate the Zen Garden, but the amount of cash required is still astronomical. It gives you the offer to buy in game coins for $1 increments, which I suppose is fair since the game is $10 on XBLA/PSN/PC and the iOS version is $3 (except I was an early adapter and paid $6), but the whole microtransaction thing still bugs me. I really hate it, in case you were wondering, but in this instance it doesn't do enough to damage the experience. It does mean most of the content is locked by a money-gate, though, so keep that in mind.

Lastly, the DS version looks way the crap worse than the other versions. Even the iOS/Android versions look way better (they technically run at a higher resolution than the XBLA/PSN versions, though they are scrunched down a little to fit on the screen). I suppose I should finally finally note that I consider the iPad/Android Tablet version of this game to be, by far, the best way to play the game. Picking up suns with touch is intuitive and excellent, the touch controls flawless in every way, which makes this easily a killer app for both iPhones and iPads (and Android phones and Android Tablets).

There is seriously so much crap to unlock (screenshot from iOS version)

I'm pretty sure you can guess what my closing remarks are going to be. Let me put it this way: this game was selling for $2 on sale on Steam the other day. TWO DOLLARS. It's on portable devices for freaking $3. You can buy it anywhere else for $10. You can even play a rather extensive demo for free in your web browser right now on PopCap's website. This game is insanely cheap and straight up amazing. I'm pretty sure you can afford it, so what are you waiting for? Go out there and buy it! And if you are thinking to yourself, "hmm, I wonder if this game is worth $10 or if I should wait for another Steam sale?" then you need to get your life in order and freaking go buy it this very second. I give you my personal Nathan guarantee that this game is worth every penny. I have yet to see someone I've recommended this game to come back disappointed. Plus, your kids can play it! And it's a way better game to have them play than that crappy Angry Birds game, let me tell you that much.

Make Plants vs Zombies 2 PopCap. You can have all my money. But while I'm waiting, I'm going to go beat Plants vs Zombies on my iPhone again. 

Five out of five starflowers. 

More like a billion out of five starflowers.