Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 – Game Review

Imagine waking up in enemy territory all alone and you have to find your way out. But, even as you try to sneak to safety, the alarms of war are activated and you have to fend off Zombies before they kill you. Help is on the way, but can you survive? Somehow you reach the gate, injured and limping, but it is being guarded by a huge zombie. Just as you give up hope, along comes an airstrike and you know extraction is just round the corner.

Immensely colorful, to the point of being garish, intense and having a lot of different modes to keep a diverse range of players satisfied, I am of course talking about PVZGW2 or better known as Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2. This, of course, is a distant relative of the hugely popular game Plants vs. Zombies, which was pretty much an airplane view tactical 2D defense game. The franchise has come a long way from that point to its current highly entertaining 3^rd person shooter mechanics. To be honest, I am a bit confused by the overall chronology of the franchise.

They have introduced a range of new characters across both battlefronts. You have Imp and Z-Mech, Captain Deadbeard, and Super Brainz on the Zombie side. And you have Citron, Rose, and Kernel Corn on the plants side. They bring some really interesting capabilities to the gameplay. But, my personal favorite is Kernel Corn, which brings some really heavy firepower to the mix, albeit at a cost to movement speed. Life is, after all, a compromise. But, the compromise is more in your favor, if you have a heavy machine gun, which shoots corn. The whole thing is a bit convoluted if you really think about it. Kernel Corn is actually shooting away the seed which is supposed to carry forward his generation. But, I digress…

On the other hand, Citron is pretty much the opposite, he is a defense based unit which can shield and turn himself into a ball for some quick movement. Rose is a bit more difficult to control and has a longer learning curve involved, but the magic is fun as you can slow down enemies and turn them into goats. What more do we want!

On the other side, we have the Imp who can summon heavy tech units every few minutes. This is supported by Super Brainz who is a melee specialist dealing heavy damage in close attacks. And my favorite: Captain Deadbeard. Who wouldn’t love a zombie pirate? He has a brilliant canon attack, which can decimate enemies.

The game has a well-balanced gameplay, with there being equitable portions of story mode, side quests, and multiplayer. The quests are rewarding enough to make you go back for gaining some coins and experience. Most of the components from the first one carry over. You can customize your character, go into co-op mode, even in main “story line”, or go for the usual multiplayer party-style vs. AI wave modes.

Well, the story mode is a bit on the underdeveloped side, with there being too much grind and too little in return, but it is still interesting enough. However, if you beat the story mode, the rewards are worth your play. The overall AI is better over the previous version as well.

In all of this, another thing they have retained and improved upon is the underlying humor of it all. Of course, that was their defining point from the start, but the new characters fit right in with their cheesy costumes and over the top character animations.

The major difference is more on the structural style rather than from a gameplay perspective. Now, there is a clear division between Zombie controlled playable hub area and the plants one. There is a contested area between these two sides.

All in all, it is an interesting game, to say the least, despite the story mode being a bit on the down low, if you liked the first one, the second installment is a blast to play. It will keep you entertained for hours on end, whether you play alone or with friends.  You can purchase this game from G2A.com for around $40; you can save up to 5% by using G2A discount code from Rebateszone.