Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare PS4 Review

From a 2 dimensional tower defense game to a third person multiplayer shoot-em-up and considering the game is made up of plants and zombies shooting the hell out of each other, it made perfect sense. Popcap Games have certainly pushed forward with Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare and spread it across all available platforms and now its available on PlayStation 4 published by EA Games. Its hard to not wonder whether the evolution of this heavily addictive mobile smash carries over some new problems and burdens which keep it from being a true classic or not. Does it keep its addictiveness? Its charm? Its personality? Ive played this title to death to find out.

The results are varied. Whilst no story is present here other than a zombie horde is threatening the plants’ garden and its down to the plants to protect it, there’s not much else. Garden Warfare is not about bells and whistles or about a reason to blow the bejesus out of each other, its just two teams where a winner must be determined by any means necessary. Even though the name certainly suggests it, Garden Warfare bears no resemblance to the famed Call of Duty series. It feels very different from the third person perspective to the comedic visual style and arsenal on offer however the modes of play all feel familiar.

Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare is all about game-play. It plays like any other third person shooter. You choose one of  twelve possible match types ranging from team death-match type called Vanquish, Kill Confirmed variant suspiciously names Vanquish Confirmed and Domination type Suburbination to co-op mode Garden Ops, there is plenty to choose from that will definitely keep interest. You then choose a character of your team whether it be a plant or a zombie. Each character has a certain fighting style such as the Peashooter plant who has a pea cannon that deals splash damage, the Sunflower which can plant healing plants and zombies have an engineer which can summon drones to attack the opposing team and the all-star which is looks like an NFL reject armed with a pig skin gun which packs some serious firepower at the cost of speed. Theres plenty of variation here all of which have their own strengths and weaknesses to take note of. Its great fun whooping the backsides of the opposing team in Team Vanquish, although you can choose to work together in the aforementioned Garden Ops mode which is a kind of horde mode. In Garden Ops, you and up to three others fight to defend your garden against waves of zombies, gradually getting tougher. Its incredible fun as you need to look after your patch and your friends whilst beating down the incoming horde, it makes for some exciting moments. At the beginning though, you don’t have a lot to throw at the opposition as only one attack is unlocked although more unlocks fairly quickly to keep things balanced. There are also personal missions to complete which can be done through any mode ranging from killing a certain amount of the enemies with a certain attack or planting a set number of a certain plant, etc. This gives reason to try out different abilities and also carries over the feeling of progression. Completing matches and killing enemies grant you experience that levels up that particular character as well as your personal level which earns you currency to spend on special card packs. These card packs can be opened to earn unlocks and buffs as well as character parts which unlocks new characters once all parts have been collected.

Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare looks great on PlayStation 4. The environments are cartoon like but nicely designed with different levels of height in them and loads of little nooks and crannys to hide or hunt. The characters themselves carry all of the charm and personality over perfectly. Zombies look brilliantly dumb but deadly and plants look just a cute as they did the first time around and the onscreen action never slows with almost zero lag! I was impressed.

Summary

Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare is definitely worth your time and it serves as a brilliant night in activity with your friends. The graphics are fantastic and the fast and frantic game-play never slows down or lags. There is tonnes of variety here  with a whopping twelve game modes to choose from and loads of characters to unlock each with its own abilities and attacks. Worth your time, play it now!

Story - 4/5

Graphics - 5/5

Game-play - 5/5

Overall - 5/5

Version reviewed - PlayStation 4