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Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defence game, in which you set up rows of plants to prevent some hungry zombies getting to your property. A selection of zombies drag themselves steadily across your lawn, and it's up to you to plant some defences to take them out - slowing them down with frozen pea shooters, slowing them down with a tasty wall-nut to munch on and more. With some fifty plants on offer, each with their own special abilities and uses, you'll have to think a bit about your strategy or they'll be in your house before you can say 'zombies on snow mobiles' and it'll be game over.
There's a lot to make your brain work here. As a strategy game, you'll need to balance your resources and needs to ensure that you only place the plants you can afford, as you build up an production line of sunlight (the currency that lets you buy more plants), and a solid defensive line, with no weaknesses that the zombies can break down.
That being said, a solid back line of sunflowers followed by a couple of rows of various peashooters protected by some wall-nuts seems to work for pretty much every undead eventuality the game throws at you, so it's not like you'll really find yourself stumped for long.
Plants vs Zombies is a perfect game for people play together, whatever their age - after all, two heads (mmmmmmmmm brains) are better than one, especially with all the virtual plate spinning and keeping up with the undead onslaught you have to do here. If you do play in co-op, one of you really ought to put on your leader's hat though, otherwise you'll quickly find yourself singing from different hymn sheets, and with flowers planted all over the place there'll be nothing to keep the zombies from munching their way through your greenery and taking over your house.
Although the game does revolve around destroying a zombie horde through your garden of intricately planted defensive flowers, Plants vs Zombies is all suitably tongue in cheek, with nothing in the way of realistic violence. While the game does, technically feature decapitations (once defeated, a zombie's head will pop off and roll away, accompanied by one of those finger-in-cheek "POP!" sounds), it's all handled with no gore, and in a comical manner. Still, something to keep in mind.
Age Ratings
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
