Plants vs. Zombies 2 Review

The main features of the game, the plants and zombies, are just as quirky and entertaining as always. The graphics have had a cutesy upgrade, and look even more colourful and brilliant than the original, even on older mobile screens. It’s nothing ground-breaking, but for a mobile game of this type it’s exactly what the title needs.

It’s all about the gameplay, and this game brings that in spades.

There are a host of new plants and zombies, including the Bonk Choy, which repeatedly punches plants within a few tiles and does a whole bunch of damage, and the Iceberg Lettuce, a really useful ‘0 sun’ plant that freezes a zombie for ten seconds or so. The names are suitably tongue-in-cheek and all fit perfectly with the feel of the game. Similarly, the new zombies are just as successful, even though some can be really challenging to try and defeat. The Explorer Zombie, for example, turned out to be a bit of a nemesis for me, carrying a torch that burns any plants it gets close to, immediately killing it.

The story isn’t anything particularly special. You’re basically trying to help Crazy Dave go back in time to before he ate his last taco, so that he can eat it again. A typically wacky, and slightly immature story, but let’s be honest, no one plays Plants vs. Zombie or other games like it for the storyline. It’s all about the gameplay, and this game brings that in spades.

The game adds a few cool new features that build on the fun gameplay of the first game without fundamentally changing anything too drastic. One addition is ‘plant food’: a nifty new trick which gives a temporary power up to any plant that you feed it to. A ‘Repeater’ will go crazy and fire a barrage of peas in quick succession and a Wall-nut will get an extra layer of armour for zombies to chew their way through. It’s a cool new feature that’s crazily satisfying to use but doesn’t mess with the gameplay too much.

A Repeater on plant food goes a bit crazy.

The game also builds on the previous title by adding new level designs and gameplay dynamics. Much like the first game added swimming pools and the like as the player progressed, the second adds new zones, such as the Egyptian Zone, where everything’s got a funky Aztec theme (including the zombies), and a Pirate Zone where everything turns a bit nautical, with pirate hats and parrots making appearances. Each zone adds new zombies, including a Ra Zombie in Egypt, who sucks any sun that appears in to its sceptre, as well as new gameplay dynamics. For example, in the Pirate area, some of the tracks will be shorter with a body of water for pirate zombies to swing in over, drastically reducing the amount of time the player has to behead the zombie. It keeps the game fresh and interesting with each new area, and it did a lot to keep me hooked on to the game for days on end.

Let’s be honest, for a free title, hours upon hours of gameplay isn’t something to be grumbled at! 

Probably the biggest change for the game is its move to a free-to-play model. This means that the game is entirely free to download from the App Store, and the Google Play Store, but that certain in-game items and areas are locked unless you’re willing to fork over cash. Fortunately, all the game levels are accessible without paying anything, but, in a particularly sneaky move by PopCap, some of the beloved plants from the first game are only available in exchange for cash. The Jalapeno, for example, costs 99 pence, whilst some of the other plants, like the Snow Pea are upwards of £2. It doesn’t sound like too much, but when you add up that there are at least 7 or 8 plants available to buy, and even more likely to be added, then it does build up pretty quickly.

The game adds some extra monetized power-ups as well. These require in game coins, but are really quite expensive, and so any extended use of these powers will mean forking over real life cash to stock up on in game coins. They are useful when you’re in some tight scrapes though, allowing you to quickly eliminate a whole host of zombies. For example, there’s a power-up which allows the player to use their finger to electrocute (and kill) some zombies, and another which allows players to pick up and throw zombies off the screen. They’re nice touches, but nothing that feels particularly necessary to fully appreciate the game, and I didn’t really find myself wanting to use them much.

The other major difference relates to seed slots. In the first game, players unlocked new seed slots based on how many coins they collected whilst playing the game, but again, PopCap have been clever and only give players access to one extra coin slot for free, and even that doesn’t come until quite late in to the game. For any extras, it’s again a £2.49 charge. This is the main difference that I noticed. Being limited to six slots was a real pain, and I was sorely tempted to buy this upgrade, but for those people who’re determined not to spend any money at all, pretty much nothing at all is lost by just playing it entirely for free.

PopCap deserve a lot of credit for making the game largely free-to-play. The three zones provide easily over 60 levels, and the game has a clever way of making you replay levels with increasingly harder restrictions to try and gain more stars, which can then unlock new levels. Not only does this add some crazily difficult challenges (which led to a lot of hair-pulling), but it adds hours on to the lifespan of the title. Let’s be honest, for a free title, hours upon hours of gameplay isn’t something to be grumbled at!

PopCap have also promised to add new content over the coming months, and they’ve specified that there will definitely be new levels, though some extra plants and zombies would be brilliant as well, to really keep things interesting and keep players hooked on the game. It won’t take too much to keep people playing for a long time.

Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time adds some flower and adornments to the trunk and branches of the original game, bringing extra flair and character to allow the game to really grow (OK maybe there were a few more plant puns). There’s no drastic changes, but this is a case of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, rather than just laziness on PopCap’s part. A truly brilliant game, with a surprising level of charm and fun rarely found in any game, nevermind just mobile games. Whether you’re new to Plants vs. Zombies, or devoured the first game and are eagerly seeking more, this is a really enjoyable game and it’s all but guaranteed to suck up a good few hours of your life.