Garden Warfare gives same PvZ personality with different packaging

The flowers and flesh eaters are at it again, but this time they're packing a bit more heat. PopCap Games' tower defense series, Plants vs. Zombies, is fairly well known among the gaming community with releases on PCs, phones and everything in between. The point of the game is to plant as many flowers as you can and strategically place them in positions advantageous to complete zombie annihilation. It's a fun little game that has you playing for hours with its upgrades and addictive zombie slaying antics(is it just me, or are most zombie killing games pretty sweet?).

The series received a sequel, "Plants Vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time," which offered much the same as the first but was still well received, scoring an 8.6 on Metacritic. A Plants vs. Zombies game was even released on Facebook and Apple chose "Plants vs. Zombies 2" as the runner-up 2013 iPhone game of the year. So what happens when you take a popular game combine it with and amazingly popular genre and put the result on next gen systems? Well, it goes a little something like this.

And if plants and zombies wasn't enough, they throw in a yeti for good measure.

"Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare" combines the fun-loving, joke-filled personality of the PvZ series and throws in guns. It's pretty much as easy as that. Despite the overly simplified analysis, that's not to say this makes for a terrible experience. As a matter of fact, there's loads of fun to be had with friends as far as Garden Warfare goes, and I think that's what PopCap really strived for here. There are so many shooters out there that take themselves too seriously, and "PvZ: Garden Warfare" doesn't fall into that trend as a third-person shooter filled with smiley sunflowers and jackhammer-riding zombies.

The gameplay will instantly feel familiar to anybody who's played a shooter before and the hit detection is pretty accurate(something that developers who specialize in shooters can even mess up). Both the plants and zombies will have four base units they can deploy into battle and each of those units will have subclasses with unique attributes; so even if you're technically playing the same class as someone else, the way each subclass plays keeps the mayhem fresh. PvZ fans will have a permanent grin as they play the series'  most memorable characters that have made the transition from stationary guards to fully mobile soldiers.

Your starting lineup. At point guard, we have Sunflower!

However, it's not all run-and-gun as each unit has a set of three cooldown abilities to spice up their strategy. For example, the game's heavy hitter, the chomper, has the burrow, goop and snare ability. The goop slows enemies, the snare holds them in place and the burrow allows the chomper to move underground and possibly gobble up an unsuspecting enemy. These actions all compliment the Chomper's namesake attack, the chomp. Not only are the abilities fun and fluid for the most part, but they neatly fit the personalities of the characters PopCap has made popular in PvZ, a fact both players new and old to the PvZ series will love.

The multiplayer is where "Garden Warfare" shines its brightest as both local and online play will keep players entranced for hours. Two people can team up locally to defend their garden against zombies for as many waves possible. The longer you stay alive, the more coins you get and the more coins you get the more you can unlock in the game. On this premise, players will be at it for hours trying to unlock every last character, item, and skin mod. Stickers can also be used to purchase potted plants in the defend your garden mode. Potted plants help you mow down your zombie foes and make the overall experience more enjoyable as a nod to the original game.

Unfortunately, only one player can take part in the online play. It seems like a missed opportunity considering the local play is a blast, but the upside is that both plants and zombies are playable in this mode. This is the first time where players can use the zombies which adds a whole new lineup of characters to choose from. There are plenty of modes to choose from including a capture the flag style game, team deathmatch and classic deathmatch where only the base units in the game are playable, creating a level playing ground for first time players and seasoned veterans. Matches go by fairly quickly and the lobby system is both simple yet effective as players can view battle statistics, chat and buy stickers in between matches.

Casey Jones makes an appearance as a zombie!

Levels are randomly selected and range from a pirate ship to a mining town with a train running through the middle. Although the maps aren't anything to write home about and the selection could be better, they do exude the PvZ mood with vibrant colors, a playful and goofy messages that add personality to the play, and that's what "Garden Warfare" is all about.

At the end of the day, this smirk-inducing, third-person shooter is a hell of a lot of fun. Silly, laid back, more addictive than crack-fun. But that's about it. There's no story(which, I mean, what would you expect anyways?), local play desperately needs to be upgraded to four players and more maps would be nice, but for $40 ($30 on the PS3) there's not much to complain about. Despite it's February release on the Xbox consoles, there should be plenty of Sony fans happy to see "Garden Warfare" finally make it's transition to PlayStation. So, if you like fun, plants, zombies, guns or any combination of the bunch, pick this up. It'll be a nice little appetizer until titles like "Evolve," "Destiny" and "Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain" can subdue our hunger. Plus, when's the next time you'll be able to say you killed a member of the undead with a potato? Well... besides "Dead Rising."

"Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare" gets an 8 out of 10 on the sweetness scale.