plants vs zombies
Latest
'Animal Crossing: New Horizons' may actually be good for you
An Oxford study tapped into data from Nintendo and EA.
‘Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville’ is available today
The latest game in the long running Plants vs. Zombies series has arrived for PS4, Xbox and PC. Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville is a third-person shooter, but it's cartoony enough for older children; EA calls it "our biggest and most accessible shooter ever." Players can compete in head-to-head multiplayer matches and explore new areas solo or in split-screen and online co-op modes.
Early version of the new 'Plants vs. Zombies' is available today for $30
As we get closer to the October 18th launch of Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, PopCap Games is ready to share a Founder's Edition. Today, fans can play the digital-only version of the game. New features and content will be added weekly over the next six-weeks, as PopCap polishes the title for its official launch.
'Plants vs. Zombies 3' is on the way and you can test it now
Six years after Plants vs. Zombies 2 staggered into the world, the next entry in the series is on the way. PopCap Games is hard at work on Plants vs. Zombies 3, and it's already offering you the chance to pit flora against undead fauna once again.
Deals with Gold: PopCap puzzlers
This week's Deals with Gold features discounts on a handful of PopCap-developed games for Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Xbox One owners can pick up third-person shooter Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare at 66 percent off ($13.59) as well as Peggle 2 at 60 percent off ($4.79). Garden Warfare is just $10.19 this week on Xbox 360 as well. Other Xbox 360 games are half-off this week, such as the original Peggle ($4.99) and its Peggle Nights expansion ($2.49) as well as Bejeweled 3 and Plants vs. Zombies ($7.49 each). Lastly, players can download both Zuma and Feeding Frenzy ($2.49 each) as well as their sequels Zuma's Revenge and Feeding Frenzy 2 ($4.99 each). The deals are good through Monday, December 15. [Image: PopCap Games]
Prison Defense: when good defense games go bad
Prison Defense is a strategic defense game reminiscent of Plants vs. Zombies except with police and prisoners. You play as the police trying to keep prisoners from escaping in 40 levels. Each level is set up in a similar way, there are a number of cages set up on the floor, players tap each crate to uncover either an enemy or a weapon. Players must then take a weapon they uncover and set it up on one side of the floor so it will be used against the enemies making their way from the right side of the floor. Since the enemies don't show up until after you open a cage with an enemy in it, you have a better chance of winning if you can get a weapon set up early but this is hard to do. Prison Defense is compatible with iPads running iOS 6.0. Prison Defense features different enemy types from a basic light damage enemy to a heavy tank. This adds some variety to the gameplay as you have to tailor your strategy based on the type of enemy you are facing. However, this does not make the gameplay that much more interesting as you are still doing the same things as you were before with the less damaging enemies because even though you try putting the shotgun characters behind the bigger prisoners to damage them more. It feels more like luck if you are actually successful with this strategy when you don't know what is in each cage and how much health the enemies have left. In the first 10 levels the difficulty quickly changes from very easy to extremely hard. The addition of new enemy types creates another challenge for players. They have to be very quick about their actions. Also, if they place a weapon in the wrong place the game is very punishing. Players can loss the level just by mistakenly placing one weapon in the wrong row. Each level can be played in three different modes: normal, plus, and hard. The animations of the characters feels slow in the normal mode and players can be waiting for the game to end as they watch a prisoner escape by slowly walking to the wall. The plus mode gives players a scenario they have to play through. This can include such completing the level in a certain amount of time or in fast forward, which alleviates some of the slow gameplay. This mode was one of the more fun modes as it offers a challenge that is still enjoyable and players feel accomplished when they complete the scenario. Hard mode doesn't feel very different from the normal mode, the enemies seem a little stronger, but since the normal mode is already hard usually, the difficulty feels very similar. The crates in Prison Defense are meant to give players a challenge by making them quickly open another crate that hopefully holds a weapon to use against the enemies, however, some of the crates are dangerous and contain TNT. The TNT doesn't seem to fit in very much with the gameplay as it hurts only your characters and not the prisoners. This makes the game extremely difficult if you have a great strategic defense set up and you happen to open the crate that destroys this defense. There is no way to get back that defense if you have opened up all the other crates with weapons in them and usually means the prisoners will escape. Sometimes the weapons in the cages you uncover disappear after a short period of time when you haven't gotten to set them up somewhere. One last downside of Prison Defense is that occasionally you will see a full screen ad that pops up after winning a level. This distracts from the gameplay and it is really easy to accidentally tap on the ad as you are expecting the button to continue. Prison Defense is free on the App Store and has some similarities to Plants vs. Zombies which shows throughout the game. Some of the levels are too hard for most players to enjoy and it lacks the entertainment value of a humorous theme and gameplay. I do not recommended bothering with Prison Defense.
Plants vs. Zombies brings the turf war to K'NEX
K'NEX is making a line of Plants vs. Zombies toy sets, ranging from adorable mystery figurines to large battlegrounds. The following Plants vs. Zombies K'NEX sets are available now: Mystery Figure Bags, a Pirate Ship set, Wall-nut Bowling set, Cone Mech set, Football Mech set, Wild West Skirmish set, Jetpack Zombie Attack set and Pirate Seas Plank Walk set. The Pirate Seas set is the most expensive at $50, while the Mystery Figure Bags are $4 each, and the rest fill in the gaps. Now it's possible not only to play Plants vs. Zombies in your living room, but all over your living room. [Image: K'NEX]
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare potted to PlayStation [update: in August]
PopCap's knack for creating "casual" games that hypnotize people into serious, never-blinking patterns of play is most recently seen in Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. Following a well-received debut on Xbox plantforms, the developer's playful blend of third-person shooting and botanical tower defense is headed to PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 this summer.
Love is a Battlefield 3 that's free for a week on Origin
If you make games free, they will come. Battlefield 3 (of dreams) is next up as Origin's On the House freebie, and you can get it for free right now. DICE's military shooter - remember when Battlefield was a military shooter? - will remain free on the PC portal until June 3. EA's also extending the freedom of Plants vs. Zombies, so you've now got until June 16 to grab Popcap's flower struggle for free. [Image: EA]
Free peas, sweet: Plants vs. Zombies is latest Origin freebie
You can return to your roots by grabbing Plants vs. Zombies: Complete Edition for free on Windows PC and Mac, now that it's Origin's new On the House game. The EA portal's free-for-all program started back in March with Dead Space, and now the original lawn of the dead is free to download and keep. The offer's good until May 28, which is probably when the next freebie will be available. [Image: EA]
Microtransactions march toward PvZ: Garden Warfare
Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare's in-game currency is earned through regular play and can be spent on upgrade packs, which unlock extra content for players populating the game's warzones. However, those that have tired from the grind will soon have the option many mobile games offer: spend real-world money to save some time on earning coins. EA's recent post revealed plans to implement the microtransaction format into Garden Warfare "starting next week." The post only mentions being able to purchase coins however, so it seems you still won't be able to directly spend on specific pieces of content. There's no mention of rewards for microtransaction enthusiasts though, so players that ignore the option won't miss out on any game-changing unlocks. The option to buy pretend money with real money follows February's confirmation from PopCap's Brian Lindley that microtransactions wouldn't be in Garden Warfare at launch. At the time, Lindley added that PopCap would be using in-game metrics to decide where to take Garden Warfare after its initial weeks on the battlefield. [Image: EA]
PlayStation 99-cent sale discounts Tokyo Jungle, Super Stardust, more
The PlayStation Network Store is hosting a flash sale for dozens of games this weekend, each discounted to 99 cents. The sale spans PS3, Vita and PSP games as well as both PS2 and PSOne Classics, such as the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon series. The sale features standout gems like PopCap's Plants vs Zombies, Jonathan Blow's Braid, Sony's own Tokyo Jungle and Housemarque's Super Stardust HD. It also includes full seasons of episode Telltale-developed games Back to the Future and Jurassic Park as well as the adventure studio's five-game Tales of Monkey Island bundle. The full list of games included in this weekend's sale can be found after the break. [Image: Sony Online Entertainment]
PopCap working to squash Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare DLC bugs [Update]
Last week's debut of the Garden Variety DLC for PopCap's Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare brought mixed reactions. Players appreciated that the addition is available free of charge, but they were less than pleased with the bugs that have been causing the third-person shooter to crash on consoles. Since initial bug reports began streaming in, PopCap's tech staff has been working to alleviate the problems. Last Friday, the developer released a patch that should have cleared up any issues with the Xbox One version of the DLC, though the Xbox 360 game remains partially hobbled. PopCap creative director Justin Wiebe has been fielding reports on Twitter. Though Wiebe has yet to offer a specific timeline for when the Xbox 360 bugs will be squashed, his most recent tweet on the topic offers players hope. "We have a potential fix submitted for testing," Wiebe wrote. "If the tests go well X360 should be back to norm soon. Fingers crossed!" We've contacted PopCap and publisher EA for further information on the status of the DLC. We'll report back as soon as we hear anything. Update: EA has offered a reply to our inquiry which you can find below the break. [Image: EA]
Humble Weekly Sale spotlights PopCap with Peggle, Plants vs. Zombies
This week's Humble Weekly Sale focuses on casual games developer extraordinaire PopCap Games, serving up downloadable copies of Peggle, Plants vs. Zombies, and other favorites plucked from the studio's back catalog. Buyers who pay at least $1 for the bundle will receive Steam and Origin copies of PopCap's pachinko-puzzler hybrid Peggle, match-three gem-buster Bejeweled 3, word-stringing puzzle game Bookworm, hidden-object adventure Escape Rosecliff Island, and sealife evolution sim Feeding Frenzy Deluxe. Chip in more than $6 and you'll also get the Game of the Year Edition of PopCap's tower defense strategy game Plants vs. Zombies, DLC expansion Peggle Nights, and color-matching puzzler Zuma's Revenge. PopCap owner Electronic Arts is donating all bundle proceeds to The V Foundation for Cancer Research and the Melanoma Research Alliance. [Image: Humble Bundle / PopCap]
Joystiq Weekly: Titanfall, Thief review, Twitch Plays Pokemon and more
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. This week's news of a new Tony Hawk game isn't exactly what we were hoping for, but it can't stop us from digging out our old cartridges and discs to revisit the series that made us mount real-life skateboards for the first time. Without the killer soundtracks and a focus on pulling off special moves that progressively got more insane with each entry, we might never have spent hours trying to learn how to ollie. Or earning fresh headaches from trying to drop into half pipes. Or building ramps out of scraps from the garage so we could grind our faces off on the pavement. Thankfully, a revitalization of childhood injury memories isn't the only thing the Joystiq Weekly has in store - news of a Titanfall bundle, reviews of Thief and Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare and a sociological exploration of Twitch Plays Pokemon are also available for your immediate consumption! Dive into this week's biggest moments in gaming right after the break. [Image: Robomodo]
No microtransactions in PvZ: Garden Warfare at launch
Unlike the free-to-play, mobile lawn defense simulator, Plants vs. Zombies 2, microtransactions aren't planned for the launch of Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. In an interview with GameSpot, PopCap producer Brian Lindley stated that Garden Warfare won't have microtransactions "at launch," but noted that PopCap will watch in-game metrics and fan reaction to determine where to take the game next. We can only guess as to what those plans may be, but hopefully they aren't comparable to the temporary "test" of charging to spawn new lawnmowers in PvZ2, as reported by GameSpot. [Image: EA]
Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare live-action trailer brings the weird
What happens when the weird-ness of Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare crosses into the real world? Weird-ness. That's okay though, because when the game is about plants fighting off hordes of the undead, it's best to just accept the weird and roll with it. [Image: EA]
Piñatas, UI tweaks among changes in new Plants Vs Zombies 2 update
Devouring all those brains must have instilled some growing intelligence in PopCap's undead horde, as the free-to-play Plants Vs Zombies 2 has been updated with a number of clever fixes and additions. Most notable are the game's user interface changes. The PvZ2 map has been redesigned to make it easier for players to read, while in that same vein PopCap has introduced a number of smaller tweaks that should make it easier for players to "know how much you've done, where you're going, and what loot you'll get along the way." In the realm of the truly new, PopCap has introduced a fast-forward button that speeds both planting times and the advancing zombie hordes. Likewise, the studio has also introduced new "Piñata Party" stages which offer big prizes, though this positive is counterbalanced by an ominous warning that this update has somehow made it more likely for players to encounter the gigantic, ultra-tough Gargantuar zombies during normal gameplay. If you haven't already been introduced to the life-draining, productivity-smashing joys of Plants Vs Zombies, now is a great time to do so. You can find free-to-play iterations of Plants Vs Zombies 2 on both iTunes and Google Play, and while both are supported by microtransactions, it's entirely possible to play the game from start to finish without ever spending a dime.
Original Plants vs. Zombies finally gets 4-inch screen support
The original Plants vs. Zombies -- one of the most popular iOS game of the last few years-- has finally received 4-inch screen support so it runs at native resolution on the iPhone 5, 5s, 5c and newest iPod touch. As MacRumors points out, in May of this year, Apple began requiring all apps to support the 4-inch display on the iPhone 5. Any apps that did not would not be approved in their next updates. The fact that the original Plants vs. Zombies has gone without an update for so long was a source of major frustration to many users with an iPhone 5. The long delay for iPhone 5 screen support probably had something to do with Popcap working on the Plants vs. Zombies sequel. Now that it's finished, it's likely that the company had time to update the original. The original Plants vs. Zombies is available in 4-inch glory on the App Store for US$0.99.
Shambling undead invade your gaming table in Risk: Plants vs Zombies
Fertilize your pea shooters and gather as much sun as possible: Plants Vs Zombies is making the jump to a strategy boardgame in Risk: Plants Vs Zombies. Those familiar with Risk should quickly feel at home in the Plants Vs Zombies iteration of the game. Instead of human armies capturing countries of various sizes, Risk: Plants Vs Zombies pits ravenous corpses against deadly anthropomorphic plants. "This completely customized take on two-player Risk offers a double-sided gameboard and three head-to-head ways to play: Tower Defense, Mission Objective, or Total Domination," states PopCap's official description. "With a detailed map of the original town of Brainsborough on one side and the familiar Plants vs. Zombies backyard from the video game on the other, players opt to be plants or zombies and then pick their battlefield. Fighting for their very survival, players engage in skirmishes, battle for three different victory conditions, and play the classic Risk game mode, vying to take over the whole board." Risk: Plants Vs Zombies has been approved for players age 10 and up. It features a $30 price tag, and is currently available on the Plants Vs Zombies online store.
