Plants vs Zombies has been an amazing franchise, from a humble start on mobile phones to the successful move to PC and consoles. Now Popcap and EA are taking on the third-person shooter genre with the Garden Warfare spin-off which is released for PC , as well as current and last gen consoles.

Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare is a 2014 third person tower defense shooter. It is developed by Popcap Games and published by EA. It is available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and soon Playstation 4 and Playstation 3.

I don’t game on mobile devices very often, when I do it’s usually something that’s received a ton of hype such as Infinite Blade, Angry Birds, and the aforementioned Plants vs Zombies. Plants vs Zombies is fun enough to make even the toughest of tower defense critics fall in love with the genre. It’s unique power ups and characters made things fun when you were trying to kill time while on the road or in a waiting room. However with the release of Garden Warfare the franchise is looking to take a more permanent role in video games, and Plants vs Zombies has plenty of options to tackle.

Multiplayer chaos.

THE GOOD: Gameplay is different in Garden Warfare, but even so it doesn’t stray far from it’s tower defense roots. Yes the focus on third person gunplay is heavy, but it’s still a tower defense game at heart. Though there are times when it’s simply down to who got the highest score. There’s multiple modes in the game, which is nice as in the original Plants vs Zombies there was only story mode and a few minigames, but in Garden Warfare you have options and plenty of them.

Character customization is amazingly vast.

Customization is surprisingly deep in Garden Warfare, players can edit their plants or zombies with accessories such as sunglasses and other items. Along the way you unlock different characters, which I suppose could be classified as classes if you’d like to do that. Like previous Plants vs Zombies entries, you’re also able to use different power ups which also simultaneously act as weapons.

The rank screen.

THE BAD: The game being online only is probably the biggest downer this is mainly due to the lack of an actual story or campaign, which is a consistent problem with online only titles.

Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare’s new gameplay.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Garden Warfare is an excellent attempt at spinning Plants Vs Zombies into a new genre. The great gameplay and even greater customization options makes for an extremely fun time. The lack of a campaign is an annoying clutch that comes with online only games, however the amount of content that Garden Warfare does bring is enough to satisfy those looking for a quick, fun time killer.