In Short: Do you like addictive tower defense games? Buy this.

In Greater Detail:

Tonight I got a Steam achievement called Cryptozombologist. You get this achievement by finally discovering the secret zombie in PopCap’s take on Tower Defense, Plants vs. Zombies. The reason I mention this is that in order to get this achievement, you need to play through the story mode of the game almost 2 entire times. For me, a person who finishes maybe 2 games a year, this is just about as high a compliment as I can pay this game. In the first 3 days of owning this game, I had logged 14 hours in it…. it’s quite addictive, at least at first.

Here’s the setup for the game: zombies of all shapes and sizes are attacking your house. Your job is to stop their onslaught by planting various plants in your yard. These plants will decimate the horde, provided you’ve placed them in the proper configuration. If the zombies manage to get all the way across the yard, they enter the house and eat your brain. At that point, it’s time to restart the level.

Unlike many tower defense games, you don’t really place plants in order to construct mazes to channel the zombies’ movement. They always move straight across your yard which is divided into 6 lanes. The only exception to this is when you use the garlic plant, which forces zombies to move to an adjacent lane. This does simplify matters, but ultimately you probably won’t miss the complex paths of other games. Speaking of simplification, this game is fairly easy overall. Certain parts do get challenging, and you may find yourself having to redo certain levels numerous times. These are often levels that have a fair amount of luck involved; while you usually select what plants to take into battle, some levels force you to choose from plants that roll down an assembly line of sorts. Despite the greater chance of losing due to just not getting any worthwhile plants, I found these levels fun, mainly because they forced me to make the best of what was given while relieving me of having to decide what plants to choose.

This game features a demo, but it’s both a positive and a negative. It only gives you a tiny hint of the contents of the full game. That said, it will likely be enough to tell you whether or not you want to spend the $10 on Steam, or $20 if you go straight to PopCap. I know, tough choice… Once you get the full version, you will be amazed at how much game they have packed into 26 MB. Here are the various modes:

Story Mode
Story mode is made up of 50 levels. These levels are divided into 5 distinct sections, taking place in 3 different locations and two times of day. The time of day is relevant because some of your plants are mushrooms and only thrive at night, unless  you plant a coffee bean on them during the day to wake them up. At the end of the game is a very fun and challenging boss battle. Better yet, when you finish the story mode, you can start it over, and it’s different.

Mini-games
Twenty mini-game levels are included. These range from stupid to fantastic, with most of them being enjoyable. One is even a take on Bejeweled, called Beghouled. The highlight is a level called Last Stand. In this game, you get a set amount of “sun” (the currency with which you purchase plants) and can use it in any fashion you like. It’s fun to try different combinations of plants until you hit on something that works.

Puzzle Mode
Puzzle mode is made up of two different puzzles, each with 10 levels. One is called Vase Breaker. The lawn is filled with giant vases, and as you break them, either a zombie or a plant will come out. It’s up to luck and some clever strategy for you to get enough plants out there to stop the zombies before they get across the lawn. Vase Breaker can get pretty tough.

The other puzzle mode is called I, Zombie. Here, you get to play the zombies, attempting to defeat a series of plant combinations that are set up against you. This mode is a lot of fun, and is a nice change of pace from the rest of the game.

Survival Mode
Survival mode is like the standard game, but with one key difference: you must survive 5 different waves of zombie attacks, with the chance to bolster your defenses in between waves. It’s great fun because by the time you get to the later waves, you get a chance to roll out some serious defenses that you might not normally get to use during the course of the main game. Survival mode has levels for all the locations and times of day.

Zen Garden Mode
The zen garden isn’t really a part of the game that you get to play. As you play through other parts of the game, from time to time a zombie will drop a flower that you can place in your zen garden. As you water and care for the flower, it gives you money. Money is used in the game to buy new plants and plant upgrades, inventory slots so you can choose more plant types, and all kinds of things for the zen garden itself. You can purchase a snail that will collect money for you, so you can open up the garden and literally walk away, earning money all the while. I went off to play a game on my 360, and when I came back I had earned several thousand dollars. You can also spend this money on the Tree of Wisdom. Each time you buy some very over-priced food for the tree, it spouts a game-play tip or secret. In general, these nuggets of wisdom are worthless… at least so far for me.

What could be better:

I’ve established that this is a great game that is well worth spending $10 to download. That said, I’ll list out some improvements that would be nice to see in an update or sequel. The resolution is locked to 800 x 600. There are no options to change it. The up-side to this is a smaller, faster game, of course, but my PC can handle it, so bring on some high-def zombies. As mentioned, some of the game varieties are less than fun, but I suppose that comes down to personal taste. But if you like the Bejeweled Twist mini-game, there might be something wrong with you. Finally, it would be great if they would implement Valve’s Steam Cloud service so I wouldn’t have to manually copy save files back and forth between my laptop and desktop PC in order to maintain progress on each machine. Of course, if you didn’t buy it on Steam, why would you care about that?

I watched the entire Microsoft keynote for E3. Lots of cool announcements, but only two that really interested me: Crackdown 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. I’ve wanted more Crackdown ever since finishing the first one. I’m really looking forward to hearing more about that game.

Left 4 Dead 2 is very surprising to me…. usually Valve releases at the pace of Blizzard, i.e. hella slow. Also, they usually support their games with a hefty amount of post-release content. Will L4D2 mean that they are leaving L4D out in the cold? Time will tell. I can definitely say that I got my money’s worth out of the first one, but I’m not so sure I’d jump on the L4D2 bandwagon right at launch. I’ll have to find out more details.

Finally, I wrote a review for Plants vs. Zombies, if the million other such reviews weren’t enough for you.

UPDATE: According to this L4D 2 preview, the format of this release is not in stone. Hopefully we’ll see a discount for owners of the first game, or a possible inclusion in some sort of Orange Box 2. Valve has never screwed over its PC audience yet, so there’s no reason to think they will now.

I’ve spent a bit of time with the recently released demo for ArmA II. The demo is huge, and contains a lot of content in the 2.5GB download. I have yet to see it all. The game is clearly rough around the edges. Before I could even get it to run I had to install a Direct X 9 redistributable. That’s ridiculous. Once I got it to run, I tried to set my keys. It crashed.

After accepting default controls, I finally got into it. Crawling around is great and when bullets start flying it makes you really want to find cover fast. It doesn’t take much to put you down in this game. I could see me owning this at some point in the future… when it’s been patched more and the community has really gone crazy with it. Definitely check it out if you are into hardcore infantry / vehicle combat.