Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 Reviews

Overall reception: Positive – excellent addition to series with some minor let downs

A third person shooter and tower defence game, Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 puts the undead against plant life. Garden Warfare 2 includes a variety of new additions to its predecessor, such as new plant and zombie classes and a range of game modes.

Garden Warfare 2 earned a pair of solidly respectable Metacritic scores — 82 from critics and 7.9 from users on the PS4 version.

GameSpot found that an attitude of light-heartedness mixed with cheesy humour, silly characters and a wealth of improvements and additions ‘enhanced the already enjoyable core experience’. However, this was somewhat mitigated by ‘glacial’ progression and ‘repetitive’ modes.

A new hub area-based area was found to be loaded with ‘meaningful and pleasant diversions’, but despite a variety of single player content modes these were found to be somewhat lacking and a ‘bit of a bust’. However, GameSpot found that the fourteen impressively diverse and varied characters were highly enjoyable.

GameSpot finally referred to Garden Warfare 2 as an ‘endearingly ridiculous’, ‘astoundingly diverse’ and ‘robust’ game.

IGN also found the large amount of customisable options and variety of game modes to be highly enjoyable. The different styles of play possible with the different plants and zombies were found to be particularly fun, although there were some feelings that such depth would be unwelcoming to newcomers to the series.

Although IGN enjoyed game modes such as the wave attack Ops mode, they found the less dynamic missions somewhat ‘underwhelming’. However, the ‘sheer amount of enjoyment’ and ‘attractively bright and cartoony art style’ was said to keep players entertained for a good while.

Similarly, Eurogamer enjoyed the depth and variety in both the game modes and characters. The tactics and customisation of characters was found to be particularly good, although imbalances and overpowered plants made Eurogamer feel that the game is ‘impossible to recommend’. They said that although easily fixable balance issues dampen the experience, Garden Warfare 2 is still a ‘very, very fine shooter’.

The overall reception from critics is that Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is a highly enjoyable and deep game with plenty options in game modes and characters for rich replayability, although it is let down by some balance issues and some unenjoyable game modes.