Plants vs. Zombies is a 2009 tower defense video game developed and published by PopCap Games. First released for Windows and Mac OS X, the game has since been ported to consoles, handhelds, and mobile devices. The player takes the role of a homeowner amid a zombie apocalypse. As a horde of zombies approaches along several parallel lanes, the player must defend the home by putting down plants, which fire projectiles at the zombies or otherwise detrimentally affect them. The player collects a currency called sun to buy plants. If a zombie happens to make it to the house on any lane, the player loses and must play through the level again.
Plants vs. Zombies was designed by George Fan, who conceptualized it as a more defense-oriented sequel to his fish simulator game Insaniquarium (2001), then developed it into a tower defense game featuring plants fighting against zombies. The game took inspiration from the games Magic: The Gathering and Warcraft III; along with the movie Swiss Family Robinson. It took three and a half years to make Plants vs. Zombies. Rich Werner was the main artist, Tod Semple programmed the game, and Laura Shigihara composed the game's music. In order to appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers, the tutorial was designed to be simple and spread throughout Plants vs. Zombies.
Plants Vs Zombies Game Of The Year Edition Full Version
Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense video game in which the player defends a house from zombies.[5][6][7] The lawn is divided into a grid,[8] with the player's house to the left.[9] The player places different types of plants on individual squares of the grid. Each plant has a different style of defense, such as shooting, exploding, and blocking.[8][10] Different types of zombies have their own special behaviors and their own weaknesses to different plants.[8][9] For example, Balloon Zombie can float over the player's plants, but its balloon can be popped by Cactus.[8][11] Other examples of zombies include Dancing Zombie which summons Backup Dancers around himself; and the Dolphin Rider Zombie, which rides on a dolphin to jump over a plant.[6][9]
There are five stages in the Adventure mode, each comprising ten levels.[13] At the end of nearly every level, the player collects a new type of plant to use in subsequent levels. On the first level of stage two (level 2-1), zombies begin to occasionally drop in-game money when killed. After level 3-4, the player can spend the money at an in-game store called Crazy Dave's Twiddydinkies.[9][13] Crazy Dave offers boosts that the player uses to upgrade already-placed plants and gardening tools for the player's Zen Garden.[8][9] It is unlocked after level 5-4[13] and allows the player to water and maintain a group of plants,[8] which are obtained as loot from killing zombies or purchasing them through his store;[13] in return, the plants generate money for the player.[8] Every stage's fifth level has a mini-game challenge, often utilizing a conveyor belt that gives various plants to the player.[7] On every stage's tenth level, the player receives plants from a conveyor belt.[13] Stages one, three, and five occur in daylight, while stages two and four take place at night.[13][11]
When the concept of Plants vs. Zombies was first established as a sequel to Insaniquarium, Fan wanted to make a game where the aliens invade the player's garden.[27] Originally, his intent was to make a gardening game where plants are grown as an investment to afford defenses against an alien invasion.[27][23] After Fan created the "perfect zombie", the enemies were changed from aliens to zombies.[26] He trimmed the concept of simultaneously defending and maintaining the garden, feeling that the repetitive gardening detracted from the main gameplay.[27][20] Simplifying the gardening system, Fan restructured the game's main aspects to fit better into the tower defense genre,[27][20] and later added further elements inspired by other games.[25] Fan enjoyed the idea of plants defending against the zombies, combining two distinct species that were not yet touched by other game developers at the time.[27] Plants playing as the role of towers made sense to him, acting as stationary defense against the recurring waves of zombies.[25] Zombies were designed to move in the current linear five- and six-lane system in the final game,[24][25] allowing the enemy zombies to interact with the defensive plants, a refinement in the game that Fan felt worked as a unique gameplay mechanic to make Plants vs. Zombies stand out in the tower defense genre amongst other tower defense games popular at the time.[25]
One of the critical aspects of the development was designing Plants vs. Zombies to be balanced between hardcore and casual gaming.[20][32] Fan designed the tutorial to be simple and merged within the game to attract casual gamers. It had the player learning by performing actions, rather than reading about how to do the actions. The in-game messages were also made to be as short and easy-to-read as possible; with the dialogue from Crazy Dave being broken up into small chunks of text to match this. The in-game messages were also designed to match a player's skill set; an example being the message telling the player to place Peashooters further to the left would only pop up in an early level if a Peashooter was placed towards the right of the lawn and was eaten.[33][34] The team discovered that newcomers to the genre of real-time strategy often had difficulty learning the importance of sun collection. The price of the income-generating Sunflowers was halved, encouraging the player to buy them instead of the attack-only Peashooter. The change forced restructuring of the balance between plants and zombies, a move that Fan said was worth the effort.[25][34]
Plants vs. Zombies has 26 types of zombies.[36] Fan's favorite zombie was Dr. Zomboss; the team spent a full month designing the fight against him at the end of the game.[32] Fan liked the Pole Vaulting Zombie due to the likely amusement of its first encounter with the player; he gave an example of a player failing to block it with a Wall-Nut plant, with the zombie jumping over the obstruction.[25] The Newspaper Zombie's first iteration simply read a newspaper, but Werner redrew the character as having become a zombie while reading on the toilet. Fan's brother asked him whether he based the zombie on their father, as he would often read the newspaper on the toilet. Fan said that while he had no such intention, it was his favorite backstory to a zombie.[29] The Dancing Zombie initially resembled Michael Jackson from the music video "Thriller".[6] The zombie was present in the game before his death, but the entertainer's estate objected to its inclusion over a year following his death; PopCap replaced it with a more generic disco-dancing zombie.[37] Many other zombies were cut during development.[29]
Plants vs. Zombies was announced for the Xbox 360 in July 2010,[79][80] to be available both on its own and as part of a bundle with Peggle and Zuma.[79] The game was released on the Xbox 360 at Xbox Live on September 8, 2010.[81] To ease use with the Xbox controller, the cursor was locked onto the lawn's grid pattern and sun would float towards the cursor.[82] The port also featured Versus mode, a Co-op mode, and a new level in Mini-Games mode.[80] Versus mode matched two players, one playing plants and one playing zombies.[83] The zombie player's goal is reaching the house, while the plant player aims to kill three of the five target zombies on the right side of the lawn.[84] A PlayStation Network port for the PlayStation 3 of Plants vs. Zombies was announced on January 28, 2011,[85] with Sony Online Entertainment as its publisher[1] and was released on February 8, 2011.[86][87]
In the I, Zombie game mode, there exists two unused zombies which cannot be placed down in-game: the Zomboni and Pogo Zombie. Despite this, they have their own seed packet graphics, and via hacking, can be reimplemented in the game and are fully functional. Strangely, the Pogo Zombie will completely ignore the brain at the end of a lane, jumping right over it. Additionally, when 'planting' a Zomboni, it's front end will appear cut-off.
Coincidentally, Michael Jackson actually did die a little over a month after this game's release. About a year afterwards, Michael Jackson's estate objected to its inclusion. PopCap subsequently changed the designs of the Dancing Zombie and Backup Dancer Zombie out of respect to Jackson. The new Dancing Zombie resembles a stereotypical disco dancer, and the Backup Dancers have pink shirts with mustaches. The redesign has been included in the Game of the Year version, released August 10, 2010, and all other versions since. Despite being removed, the textures of the original Dancing Zombie and Backup Dancer Zombie can be found in the game's files.
In the original version of the game, the Zomboni enemy had a different description in the Suburban Almanac than it does in the GOTY edition. Judging from the current description, it was most likely changed for trademark reasons.
Zombies are invading your home, and the only defense is your arsenal of plants! Armed with an alien nursery-worth of zombie-zapping plants like peashooters and cherry bombs, you'll need to think fast and plant faster to stop dozens of types of zombies dead in their tracks. Obstacles like a setting sun, creeping fog and a swimming pool add to the challenge, and with five game modes to dig into, the fun never dies!
Parents need to know that Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville Complete Edition is a third-person shooter for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Windows PCs with constant cartoon combat. This is the latest chapter in the popular Plants vs. Zombies franchise, which has covered games, apps, toys, and more. The range of attacks is broad -- the plants shoot seeds from gun-like mouths and chomp with giant jawed bulbs, while the zombies shoot lasers and detonate bundles of dynamite -- but the fighting, though fast-paced and frenetic, never involves blood or gore. Defeated enemies simply fall to the ground and disappear. Players' plant and zombie avatars have intense visual style and animations, but betray no thoughts or emotions beyond an eagerness to fight and destroy each other. Players who work together and cooperate as part of a team are bound to experience more success, and local split-screen multiplayer offers an opportunity for kids in the same room to have a positive social gaming experience. Parents should also be aware that a virtual store (in the PC, PlayStation, and Xbox editions, but not the Switch version) allows players to spend real-world money within the game. The Switch version includes all previoulsy included downloadable content. 2ff7e9595c
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