QCF: Plants VS Zombies: Garden Warfare

he Undead; we’re already well aware that they’re everywhere, but If there’s one particular property that’s assisted in propelling the trend of zombies into a practical modern day motif within today’s culture, it would definitely be Plants vs. Zombies.

Aside from coddling the concept of flesh hungry corpses into charismatically mischievous ghouls, the franchise has made strides to redefine and expand the tower-defense genre into something to care about; which is why Garden Warfare such a mixed bag of roses and manure—but mostly shit.

Employing a modified Battlefield 4 engine, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare attempts at delivering it's own brand of tactical shooter elements and conquest dynamics with the horde mode design and Tower defense sensibilities—the results peter into something that’s tepidly Luke warm at best, and frustrating monotony that’s largely unfulfilling the rest of the time.

Garden Warfare corners itself into a position of demanding a degree of commitment that grants a sense of fulfillment largely inconsistent in contrast to the initial effort put in. PopCap’s cutesy Third-person grudge shooter is a pure multiplayer affair; there’s no campaign, no solo-mission play, not even a single bot will roam the map—it’s just multiplayer. While the setup keeps things simple, never has a game that’s purely centered on multiplayer alone possessed such horrid matchmaking with lobbies that are grossly limited in utility.

 After spending some time with it, it’s pretty safe to deduce from my experience, that the algorithm that dictates matchmaking is based almost entirely of direct availability of whoever’s currently waiting in a lobby. Factors like additional classes, sticker perks, and levels of strength in classes are wildly thrown together into mismatch variable proportions, and one particular mode, Garden Ops, is affected even more on top of these issues, because your odds of making any significant success are dramatically cut if you’re playing in a squad that isn’t full.

The gun play especially falls victim to the same lack of connection for the intended fusion of design. Adjusting to the nuances of Garden Warfare’s trigger physics and the tactics involved just flounders anywhere between accessible and simplified to perplexing extents that will leave players scratching their head over how they even got killed or got the kill for that matter. With the exception of headshots, it’s twitch gun-play that involves little to know input of skill, shoot anywhere, shoot them in the figurative baby-toe and that respective flower or ghoul will go down, and even though the more robust classes do a better job of holding their own, strategy mainly falls on what kind of arsenal or perks you’re carrying without the bother of motivating players to strategize on how to use it, and rat race to get these benefits is almost equally as sinister as a premium service.

Performing well rewards you with the in-game currency of PZ coins, and you can use this coins to buy classes or perks, which unlock several perks and talents you can distribute accordingly with your various classes. While you have the ability to download the bundles of content themselves, to access the content is locked behind an entirely different sort of paywall, which wouldn’t be so bad if not for the meager restitution given for even the most impressive of runs against an escalating rate of exchange that increase with every subsequent purchase. The Sticker packs are enjoyable foil to this flawed system as they can range anywhere between class specific exhaustible power-ups that only last within that round (or an even smaller time limit) or they’ll allow you to purchase turrets or items within the stage to further your cause (which especially comes in handy for a round of Garden Ops) but these packs can also be expensive, and fall into the same kind of collection fatigue that the leveling up and consequential upgrading does.

Contrary to the direction this review has been lead thus far, Garden Warfare is still capable of it’s moments of fun and does an incredible job of catering the right kind of fan service for those loyal to the series’ charm and the conventions of shooters. Maps are not only expansive but beautiful to roam and the various modifiers within the stage or factions add a layer of depth that supplies frenetic bursts of fun that complements the chaotic lack of a comprehensive rudimentary system in its shooting but these moments are few and far between. Team Vanquish and Gardens and Graveyards are standard shooter affairs but they don’t do much to for GZ because it’s not a good shooter that can get by on these routine modes of play, leaving Garden Ops the only match type that’s worth any merit, but it doesn’t even do that right.

What makes Garden Warfare so disappointing as that all of the ideas are fundamentally poised for success in what was supposed to be a proposal of mixing two worlds into a stupid fun game, but the laziness and half-assed follow through leaves the game feeling more stupid than fun.

The wavering presence of the all too necessary community is another factor that’s already placed a shelf life on the game because of its complete lack of single player accommodation, making its $40 asking astronomical in hindsight, even after the eventual price drops are accounted for; I don’t think I can recommend against Garden Warfare enough.