Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare Review

Consoles: Xbox 360 & One, PC, PS3 & PS4
Release Dates: Feb 25^th (Xbox One & 360), Jun 24^th (PC), Aug 19^th (PS3 & PS4)
Developer: PopCap Games
Publisher: Electronic Arts

What do you get when you cross EA’s Battlefield and Pop Cap’s Plants vs Zombies? You will probably get something like Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. This game takes all the action of Battlefield and all the wackiness of Plants vs. Zombies and creates a fun fast paced multiplayer shooter for all ages. The only question is do these two combine well? Or is this just a blended mess of grass and blood.

STORY
First off there is no story. The only thing that is given is that zombies and plants don’t like each other. Now if we go back to the original Plants vs. Zombies we can kind of use that as the origin story. Basically zombies are invading your home to eat your brains and Crazy Dave wants to help protect you from them. That is pretty much it; so simple a zombie could get it.

GAMEPLAY
(You must have an Xbox Live Account to play this game)
First off this is not the same game as the original Plants vs. Zombies. You will not be placing plants on a field and letting them fight for you. No, this is a very basic third person shooter. In the game you play as The Plants or The Zombies and complete certain objectives. The controls and game plays similar to Battlefield’s multiplayer.
There are different classes of plants and zombies and each has their own special abilities. You can choose Peashooter/Solider (Infantry), Sunflower/Scientist (Medic), Chomper/Engineer (Special Assault), Cactus (Sniper) and All-Star Zombie (Heavy Assault). These characters can all be compared to classes in EA’s Battlefield. Once you play through a few rounds you will figure out what class you want to stick with. They are all pretty well rounded and each has their own set of challenges to do in order to rank up.

The game comes with six modes to start off with (and more coming in updates). You get the Welcome Mat (beginner modes), Garden Ops (Horde mode), Gardens & Graveyards (Capture the Objective), Team Vanquish (Team Deathmatch) and Gnome Bomb (Reverse Capture the Flag). They are all a lot of fun to play and my personal favorite is Gardens & Graveyards. When you complete each round or a challenge you will get a certain amount of credits, which you use to purchase card packs in the store. These packs range from customizable options for your classes, potted plants, and new characters (with new weapons like the dolphin shotgun) to play as in battle. Sometimes it takes quite a while in order to get enough points to unlock a character because you need five piece of a character to unlock them. Packs are randomized and you will never know what you will get. It definitely makes it fun buying packs but can become annoying when you are missing just that one piece.

GRAPHICS
There is nothing too special about the graphics in this game. It is designed to look goofy and colorful. Which for this game fits perfectly! Each character moves in a new 3D animation. They walk insanely wacky from the drudging of the zombies to the sprint of the sunflower they really made the character models come to life from their 2D predecessor. The levels are designed to have plenty of places to hide and explore. The levels add some great pieces of humor with hilarious graffiti drawings on the wall to weird statues of Crazy Dave in his underwear. This game as I said before isn’t anything special in the graphics department. It is not Battlefield graphics but it is definitely an above average looking game. Sometimes the levels has some issues with loading all the items in the game but it was very rare and only happened when the connection slow. 
FINAL THOUGHTS
Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare is definitely a fun, fast paced, multiplayer shooter from EA and Pop Cap Games. Will it be shooter of the year? Probably not, but it is definitely a game to pick up over the summer to just have fun and to kill time. With numerous challenges, a ranking system, and characters to unlock there is a lot to do even if there is no story. PVZ: GW gets 4 Brains out 5.