Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2

Playstation 4 Version

Deep behind enemy lines and in desperate need of extraction, a Sunflower finds herself completely surrounded by Zombies in a land, formerly known as Suburbia, now completely conquered by Dr. Zomboss: the commander of the Zombies. The Sunflower is able to heroically fight her way out of the ambush with the aid of her fully automatic weapon and personal friend: Crazy Dave.

Directly following the events of Garden Warfare 1, Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 now has the Plants on the defensive in the war against the Zombies. Dr. Zomboss has renamed previously known Plant territory as “Zomburbia”, and is looking to finish the Plants off once and for all. The good news is that just about everything featured in the original Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare title makes a return once again, with the exception of two previously included “Classic” gameplay modes, which were Classic Team Vanquish and Classic Gardens and Graveyards. With that said, Garden Warfare 2’s competitive diversity, customization options, and plethora of character classes are now fully featured in every single game mode with the exception of the “Welcome Mat”. Similar to Classic iterations in the previous title, Garden Warfare 2’s Welcome Mat does not allow any form of character customization, character variants, or weapon upgrades.

Garden Warfare 2, like its predecessor, has a heavy focus on multiplayer, whether it be for co-op or competitive play. Strictly in terms of competition, the depth is as good as ever, but may come across as illusory to an inexperienced Garden Warfare player. Each of the fourteen playable characters, eight of them returning and six of them new, has a wide range of different variants to select from, each of those variants with entirely unique properties. My personal frustration with unlocking all of the character variants in the first Garden Warfare title turned me into an extremely motivated Garden Warfare 2 player, constantly looking for more coins to unlock each variant.

Each of the six brand new characters has a total of five different variations, with the exception of the Imp, who has a sixth “Z7” edition that comes exclusively with the deluxe edition. Incredibly rare “Legendary” variations can also be unlocked for the new six classes, with at least one Legendary variant per new character. Thanks to Garden Warfare 2’s character import feature, variants unlocked in Garden Warfare 1 can be directly imported over to the second game, giving each of the original classes a total of (at least) ten different variants. In addition to both the Scientist and Chomper both having unlockable Legendary classes, the Chomper also has a special Unicorn variation which is only available by reaching level 313 in Garden Warfare 1, the original games highest possible level.

In my personal quest to unlock every single variant, I’ve been able to successfully determine the competitive diversity of Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2. Very similar in nature to smash hit titles like Call of Duty, Garden Warfare 2 offers increased character customization, weapon diversity, and better upgrades as you continue to play through the game and purchase card packs using an in game currency. Unfortunately, however, many of these unlockable classes aren’t available from the start, and if players don’t have the benefit of having played Garden Warfare 1 and importing some of their prior variants, they may find themselves feeling like Garden Warfare 2 is imbalanced. The staggering amount of variants, upgrades, and ways to customize each of the characters, however, provides Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 with an incredible amount of both competitive balance and diversity.

Plants vs Zombies has come a long way from its original tower defense roots into the creation of a fully featured, class-based, third person shooter. With all of the new methods and character variants to “vanquish” your foes, Garden Warfare 2 differs from its predecessor by providing players with an all new single player mode, featuring a backyard hub, which players are directly teleported into after the games opening sequence. From the hub, which is basically an open world iteration of the Plants vs Zombies universe, players are able to explore the environment for collectibles and secret areas. Indeed, the discovery of some of these secrets is exciting at first, yet the excitement tends to fade quickly.

The backyard hub is, essentially, a turf war between the Plants and Zombies, with a base on each side of the map to correspond with either the Plants or the Zombies. Each side of the map features territory controlled by its respective force, and if you veer too far onto enemy controlled territory, you will simply be attacked. The ability to engage A.I. opponents from the hub is an excellent addition since players can challenge these foes for experience points and coins, or to simply test out various character variants prior to multiplayer. If players really want some action in the hub, however, they have the ability to trigger an infinite battle in the center of the map.

In addition to exploration and combat, players also have the ability to take on single player campaign missions for either the Plants or the Zombies. Each side has approximately the same amount of missions, although many of them very often feel like rinse and repeat operations. Indeed, one may not expect a third person shooter labeled “Plants vs Zombies” to have an elaborate story, but even with the lack of a thought provoking story can still come high levels of enjoyment. Although many of the story related missions were interesting to take on, several of these missions were nearly identical to “Garden Ops” missions, which is a game type similar to the Gears of War Horde mode featuring waves of increasingly difficult enemies. If players are lucky enough to get deep into the single player missions, they can unlock something called Infinity Mode, which transports players into an unknown location of the universe to challenge the Gnome horde.

Despite the fact the backyard hub is a serious upgrade from Garden Warfare 1, I can’t help but feel somewhat underwhelmed by its content for both single player and co-op. Players can adjust settings in the backyard to allow up to three of their friends to join them for exploration purposes, or even sparring. Co-op missions in the backyard, however, are extremely limited, and players are much better off just simply jumping into a four-man Garden Ops mission to take on hordes of enemies. Story missions and backyard exploration seem intriguing at first, but upon closer inspection, players experienced with triple a open-world titles can easily conclude that the majority of Garden Warfare 2’s world is lifeless. Interestingly enough, the graphics of the environment are completely gorgeous in some areas, successfully broadcasting the development team’s skill and creativity. But once again, some of the areas are more fluff than content, such as the upper portion of Crazy Dave’s tree house which – despite its extremely creative design – players are not able to access. Equally as disappointing as the lack of content and missions in the backyard hub is the fact that players never have the opportunity to meet neither Crazy Dave nor Dr. Zomboss throughout the entire games story – effectively reducing these two key characters to nothing more than an occasional talking icon at the top of the screen.

From a purely technical level, Garden Warfare 2’s competitive multiplayer carries on the smooth mechanics of Garden Warfare 1 with excellent precision. Despite the fact that competitive play may come across as chaotic and imbalanced to an inexperienced Garden Warfare player, the truth of the matter is that the chaos and lack of balance is nothing more than an illusion. There are so many different character classes, cosmetic modifications, and elemental properties in the game to choose from that a new player seeing all these things at once might not realize who’s on their team, or what they’re being targeted with. But with experience comes an understanding of, at a bare minimum, elemental properties and Garden Warfare 2’s gameplay mechanics; successfully rewarding the determined player. Competitive gameplay outside of Turf Takeover can be even more unforgiving for the Garden Warfare 2 player, since players may find themselves taken off balance with the spawn point system, but that’s what the Welcome Mat is for…

In a genre filled with increasingly stale creativity, Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 offers a breath of fresh air for third person shooter fans provided they are able to weather the initial storm. Garden Warfare 2’s plethora of different character properties and variations can create some of the most dynamic online battles available in its respective genre. Despite the lacking single player content and underwhelming campaign missions, Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 is easily the first great shooter of 2016, and could very well navigate itself into a Top 10 position of the third person shooter genre if the game is able to continue its evolution, content expansion, and gameplay balancing.

OVERALL RATING

8.6/10