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Yes, that’s right, we’re now publishing reader reviews here on Kotaku. This is your chance to deliver sensible game purchasing advice to the rest of the Kotaku community.
And thanks to the very kind chaps at Madman Entertainment, purveyor of all kinds of cool, indie and esoteric film, the best reader review we publish each month will win a prize pack containing ten of the latest Madman DVD releases.
This review was submitted by Steven Pickstone. If you’ve played Plants Vs Zombies, or just want to ask Steven more about it, leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Plants Vs Zombies (iPad)
It is the year 2010 and mankind has been awaiting the pending zombie apocalypse for over a decade. Numerous institutions have been releasing training simulators for abandoned villages and shopping centres annually for years. However nobody is training the everyday Joe. While our creepy lifeless villages and mirage of shopping centres swell with reinforced gun slinging experts, the foundation’s we hold dearest, our homes are defenceless!
Enter PopCap’s Plants Vs Zombies! Can casual fun mix it with the big boys; is there enough substance in this tower defence title to entertain the hardcore?
Loved
Humour: In every hidden hole and dark corner of this title is a cleaver pun or pop culture reference. It won’t stick out and slap you in the face, you need to dig around to discover it but the writing is A grade – even the ‘Help’ is indisputably hilarious.
Variety: I resisted this title for so long as I bushed it off as a couple of pea plants shooting green balls at some cartoon zombies for five minutes. Boy was I wrong; as not only do the tiles of the levels change. The number of plants and zombie types will knock your socks off. Then there is the piece de resistance: the mini games; and whether you are bowling walnuts or mad hatter tapping the screen like Mozart in a solo with AC/DC the variation is sure to impress any cynic.
Platform: I’m not sure if this is a compliment of Plants Vs Zombies or not but I played and reviewed this game on my iPad. If I didn’t know any better I’d have thought the game was built from the ground up for the platform. It uses the touch screen and display resolution flawlessly, I shudder to think of all the clicks this title curses the player with in its traditional keyboard and mouse manifestations.
Hated
Difficulty: I guess this comes hand in hand with a casual title but all up the difficulty level of the game is just a little too… well err… casual. A dedicated gamer will quickly discover a winning strategy and it will likely carry them through the entire campaign.
No Multiplayer: I’m really clutching at straws here and I guess this is more wishful thinking than a real grievance. On the back of the announcement that XBLA with be getting PvZ with support for multiplayer, it would be great to see the iPad get a similar feature buff. I don’t even expect it to be on the same device, as apparently the internet is capable of connecting two devices together these days.
At the end of the day I really loved Plants Vs Zombies and recommend it to any iPad owning gamer, if for nothing else but the notable laughs. It is an excellent title to lure that less than enthusiastic better half in to enjoying your passion and its inclusion of achievements ensures it isn’t short on challengers for the more competent gamer, now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to put my socks back on.
Reviewed by: Steven Pickstone
You can have your Reader Review published on Kotaku. Send your review to us at the usual address. Make sure it’s written in the same format as above and in under 500 words – yes, we’ve upped the word limit. We’ll publish the best ones we get and the best of the month will win a Madman DVD prize pack.
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