The world of gaming is certainly filled with various genres, but none caught me more by surprise then Tower Defense. It was a name I heard kicked around the internet, usually connected to German music videos. That was when someone introduced me to Plants vs Zombies, a great introduction into the world of tower defense. I was immediately hooked, and played the crap out of the title.
Now with the sequel debuting on the iOS I figured it was time to give this Free-to-Play tower defense a much needed play through. How does Plants vs Zombies 2: It’s about Time hold up? How does the F2p affect the general game-play?
Gameplay
So you’ve never played a Tower Defense game before? A quick low-down will help you understand Plants vs Zombies 2. Tower Defense started with something kinda like Starcraft and Warcraft (Real Time Strategy), but instead of having to defeat / defend an entire map you are given a smaller region to maintain. Various baddies will appear, walk in a general set path and it’s your job to destroy them, wave after wave, using defensive towers.
In Plants Vs Zombies 2, you first need to plant a Sunflower to obtain the necessary resources to raise other Plants. Each plant has their own defensive / offensive abilities, leading to some interesting strategy. You not only need to destroy each wave of zombies, but you have to do so while protecting your home – if they get inside, it’s game over.
PvZ2 does offer some updates that really kept the game from feeling stale. First up it’s the zombies types. With the subtitle of It’s About Time you can guess there is some time travel involved, leading to some pretty interesting shambling undead. The first stop is in Egypt, which had plenty of variety to keep you on your toes.. My personal favorite was the Sun Pharaoh, who took the sun points that you would normally collect from Sunflowers and pulls them across the screen. Other zombies to watch out for are Anubus (who raises gravestones), a Explorer Zombie with a torch (plants don’t really like fire) and my other fave: Zombies hiding behind stone pictures.
Other new additions were geared more towards to the F2P side, notably several available power-ups. The first type is a burst, which when used gives your plants a burst attack for a few seconds – all the plants react differently, but it’s usually quite effective. Others are more geared towards the iPad’s controls and touch attacks, but they’re quite costly. While all of them can be earned, so you don’t need to go spending your coins, there were a few times levels felt overwhelming without them, as if to encourage you to spend to succeed.
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Presentation
This is a difficult piece to examine, as I more than enjoyed PopCap’s very endearing artwork. Presentation was pretty solid, all the characters have excellent animation and the various creatures have benefited from a lot of effort. But with it being a sequel and PopCap being a subsidiary of EA Games, I expected a bit of a graphics upgrade. That’s not saying that the game look bad by any means; it still has the special quality that made this an indie phenomenon.
Sound Quality
This is a game that doesn’t necessarily require sound in order to play. Generally with most Tower Defense titles, sound is just used as queues to let you know when baddies are coming. The game does deliver an excellent balance of SFX. There is always plenty going on the screen, but it never felt like you couldn’t tell what was going on.
Overall 7.5
Well the title is F2P, so by that justification you should totally give it a spin. While there are some elements that scream F2P, countless hours of gameplay are here to be had. Plants Vs Zombies 2: It’s About Time is not my favorite Tower Defense, but it’s certainly fun enough to pick up and play on the go.