REVIEW – With the release of Plants Vs Zombies the casual players got another game to waste some time with their mobile phones. Then Garden Warfare arrived at the consoles, and it had a bit of a rough release. Still it was a success in the massively multiplayer TPS games, and it was an interesting game.

Garden Warfare 2 expands on the ideas, and size of the previous title. More levels, more characters, and, even more, gameplay modes await the fans. The basic concept is the same, as in we control walking „Rambo” vegetables to kill off the evil zombies.

Double edged visuals

The visuals are both good, and bad at the same time. The Frostbite 3 engine does not disappoint us again when it comes to graphics (particularly as it ran Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefield 4). The models, environments, and different objects are well drawn, and look beautiful. Plus the special effects also look rather good. However…

While the player will get used to the fact that their brain will have to cope with the millions of colors flying at them while playing, it was frustrating for us. Garden Warfare 2 has a lot of colors that bombard us, and it can be distracting from the combat. At first, I could barely find out where the enemy was attacking from due to the colorful rush of effects.

On a more positive note, regardless of all the fancy effects that occur at the same time, and the players shooting at each other (zombie or plant), the developers were able to keep a steady 60FPS. Unfortunately, some games can barely do this, but Garden Warfare 2 hits it home in this regard.

Destructive Peas, and his friends

Our base in the game is Suburbia’s central square. There are two sides, on one end there are the plants, and on the other the zombies have taken a foothold. We can upgrade our characters, stats, setup the difficulty, and start a new game in this headquarters. We also have the ability to play in split screen, or in a 24 online player mode. In co-op mode, we have to defeat waves of enemies.

We also get a solo mode called Flag of Power, where we have to defend the flag on the Town Square against waves of enemies. The number of enemies always get higher, however, no need to worry as we also get new teammates later.

We also have old game modes returning from the previous game such as Gnome Bomb, Vanquish Confirmed, Subordination, and Team Vanquish. Of course, there are new methods available for us to play in the sequel such as Herbal Assault, where the plants decided to be on the offensive for once. The zombies will have to be on the defensive. There is also Turf Takeover, which combines Gardens & Graveyards plus the previously mentioned Herbal Assault. In this mode both the plants and zombies will attack us in waves.

Hedge trimming

Our characters can be customized. We can add clothing, tattoos, and other appearance modifiers, but we can also upgrade them. We also get new characters for both sides, on the plant side we get corn, rose, and orange. While the zombies get Super Brain, Imp, and Captain Deadbeard.

The new gameplay modes are fun, and Garden Warfare is still funny and has an excellent gameplay. It is a quality product that can put most Tripe A games to shame regarding content. While the original Plants vs. Zombies was a hit, and Garden Warfare was a TPS game instead of an RTS tower defense game, the sequel still lacks a bit regarding new content and ideas. Of course, we cannot expect revolutionary ideas, but new modes, characters, and levels could have been added to a big DLC package. There was no need to build an entirely new game for this.

-Kese-

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: PopCap Games

Genre: Action, TPS

Release Date: 23 Feb 2016