We’ve been yapping about this game ever since it was first announced. We offered you a quick review of it and now the full review. WARNING: it’s dangerously ADDICTING!

Plants Vs Zombies ($2.99)

It’s been so long since we last saw a tower defense game that left us in awe. Plants Vs Zombies remains intact for the iPhone and yes, it’s every bit as fun as the PC/Mac versions. You and I already know it, you’ve bought the game and AT LEAST played one level so far!

Presentation

Let’s now treat the review as if this is the first time you’re hearing about the game. It’s basically tower defense where the “offense” walks in a straight line thus “line defense”. The overall story of the game is that zombies are attacking your house and the defense is left to your plants.

Plants Vs Zombies initially takes you to your frontyard, the back and then the roof. There are also levels that take place at night where you can use mushrooms. The animation and sound effects are top notch and frankly, one of the bests you’ll ever see… EVER.

Controls

Everything is pretty much touch controlled. Touch to plant seeds, touch to take them out, to pick up sunlight. Even for the special minigames/boss levels you use touch. Now let’s discuss how you’ll actually put touch into use.

Gameplay

Your first course of defense is planting seeds. Planting seeds is as easy as tapping the seed you want to plant and tapping a “square” on your lawn. The plant automatically gets planted and will auto fire the enemies. The next thing you need to know is picking up sunlight as this helps you plant stronger towers.

Sunlight is really the coin system for the game. You live and die through the amount of sun you have. Sunflower seeds are the first to be given by the gardener. Sunflowers dish out sunlight as well. Collect these THEN plant the shooter plants.

Different seeds are unlocked throughout the game. You get three headed shooters, a grave digger and sometimes, special items like shovel and almanac (for collecting plants AND zombies encountered), are some of these items.

As you move through the game, little tutorials pop up as to the plants’ powers as well as offer instructions to pick up “coins” which you can use to purchase special items like an extra “seed packet” slot.

Lastly, every 5 levels or so is what I call “boss battles”. These take you away from the regular tower defense mode and be presented with little minigames. These include but not limited to bowling-type and whack-a-mole type gameplays which offer some much needed “intermission” play.

Suggestions

Where are the endless and other modes you unlock on the original version of the game? Also, the initial load takes a little while. Some graphics/animation adjustments should be added in the background for the game to run at TOP NOTCH on older gen devices like the Touch 2G and iPhone 3G.

Conclusion

The famous WoW quote can be perfectly applied to this game: friends don’t let friends play Plants Vs Zombies because they’ll probably hide under their cave only to come out after completing the game.

Just like any PopCap Games’ game, Plants Vs Zombies takes control of the tower defense genre almost to the point it just becomes unfair for anyone else! Needless to say, you SHOULD download this game… immediately.