Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare (or simply Garden Warfare) is a 2014 multiplayer third-person shooter video game developed by PopCap Games and published by mh:crappygames:Electronic Arts. The game was initially released for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One on February 25th 2014, as a timed Xbox exclusive. The Microsoft Windows version release came out on June 24th 2014, while PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 versions came out on August 19th 2014.

This game is known for being first installment of the Plants vs. Zombies third-person shooter subseries, which is later followed by two games.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Like Overwatch did two years later, Garden Warfare does a good job at inspiring from Team Fortress 2, with the main difference between TF2 and Overwatch is Garden Warfare is played in a third person perspective.
 * 2) The graphics and visuals look colorful, thanks to mixing the series' cartoony aesthetics and Frostbite 3's powerful capabilities.
 * 3) *Surprisingly enough, due to the fact that the game is a shooter game, it is one of the few games that the Frostbite engine, which is an engine originally designed for shooters like Battlefield actually fits the game.
 * 4) Excluding the I, Zombie mode from the original Plants vs. Zombies, zombies, which are the main antagonist of the series are now playable for the first time as a major part of the game. This trait would later be shared by its sequels and Plants vs. Zombies Heroes.
 * 5) There are eight characters to play (four for each side), it should be noted that both sides' characters have enough difference to be their own class.
 * 6) *Peashooter and Foot Soldier: Both serve as assault classes. The difference is the Peashooter' s main attack focuses on dealing damage to multiple zombies, can use Hyper to gain speed and jump height, Chili Bean Bomb to vanquish multiple zombies within the blast range and Pea Gatling that deals a moderate amount of damage but has a high rate of fire, while Foot Soldier's main attack focuses on taking down single target, can use Rocket Jump to get to the higher ground, Zombie Stink Cloud to cover as well as damaging multiple plants and ZPG that is useful against rooted plants.
 * 7) *Chomper and All-Star: Both serve as tank classes. Chomper behaves like he did in the original, being able to eat zombies to instantly vanquish them, but cannot attack or move quickly for few seconds. He can also uses Goop and Spikeweed to slow down and snare respectively and Burrow to devour zombies by surprise. All-Star attacks plants by shooting footballs at a high rate, can deploy Dummy Shield to block attacks, Imp Punt is used to deal high explosive damage to groups of plants and Sprint Tackle can be either used to tackle opponents or to escape.
 * 8) *Sunflower and Scientist: Both serve as healer classes. Sunflower focuses on long-range attack with Sun Pulse and Sunbeam and can heal allies with Heal Beam and Heal Flower. Scientist focuses scouting and picking off enemies at close range. He can use Warp to teleport straight, Sticky Explody Ball acts like stickybomb and Heal Station to heal nearby zombies.
 * 9) *Cactus and Engineer: Both serve as support classes. They share the trait of being able to deploy flying drones. Cactus serves as a sniper, being able to take down opponents at far, can deploy Potato Mines that explode upon contacting and Tallnut Battlements to block attacks. Engineer can build teleporters and turrets, with the former allows zombies to advance faster in Gardens & Graveyards. He can also use Sonic Grenade to stun plants as well as unburrowing Chompers and Jackhammer to ride around.
 * 10) The character variants are a rather interesting concept, which can be either elemental (such as fire, ice, toxic, etc...) or have different functions, similar to the tower defense games.
 * 11) The game can be served as a kid-friendly alternative to many M-rated shooters like Call of Duty and Team Fortress 2 due to the series' lighthearted tone, almost anyone can pick up and play the game. The game can also be addictive after a long play.
 * 12) Both sides have a different playstyle: Plants take the role of defending in Gardens & Graveyards and Taco Bandits, can summon stationary pots to attack nearby zombies. Zombies take the role of attacking, can summon zombies that move around to attack, paying homage to the original Plants vs. Zombies.
 * 13) 8th Gen versions only and PC: Boss Mode allows you to control Dr. Zomboss or Crazy Dave inside flying vehicle up in the air. The Boss Mode aircraft can deploy spotting, healing and reviving stations, along with an airstrike.
 * 14) *Speaking of the Xbox One version, the Boss Mode supports Kinect, which is nice.
 * 15) If any of your teammate gets vanquished, you can revive them.
 * 16) The soundtrack is nice to listen, being composed by Peter McConnell.
 * 17) Variety of customizations for both plants and zombies; players can customize their classes with accessories, tattoos, hats and organics (for plants) and weapon skins (for zombies).

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The game has barely anything to do with Plants Vs Zombies, it's a shooter genre with Plants Vs Zombies slapped into it and even then it's not that different from most shooters at the time
 * 2) The game itself is online-only (with no singleplayer mode, unless you count Garden Ops), unless you play the game on PS3 or PC, requires a subscription service to play the game, even through the disc version of the game.
 * 3) The game has microtransactions and lootboxes in the form of cosmetics, fortunately they're all cosmetics and all you unlock are skins and not pay 2 win stuff mostly, and even then they're not expensive.
 * 4) The Garden Ops mode, while is fun is restricted to plants side. This is fixed in the sequel where zombies can now play Ops.
 * 5) The PS3 version suffers from poor optimization and sometimes when loading Wallnut Hills on Gardens and Graveyards or mixed mode it will freeze up, forcing you to turn off your system.
 * 6) A notable lack of contents at launch. However many free DLCs were added during its lifespan.
 * 7) The game may feel outdated compared to other installment in the Garden Warfare sub-series, specially since the rest have a single player campaign.
 * 8) This game is notorious for its terrible balancing, which unfortunately carried to the subsequent games.
 * 9) Unlike the subsequent games, there is no option to switch regions, which mean that if you live in Asia for example, you will stuck to whenever you are. What made this worse that some of the regions' lobbies are often empty. Fortunately it is possible to switch to a different region via friend list.
 * 10) Awful leveling system, as grinding for objectives are the only way to rank up, which can be repetitive. Fortunately, the sequel and Battle for Neighborville use the XP system, which makes it easier to rank up.
 * 11) Your allies can get in your way, meaning they can block your movement or even block your shots, making for some unnecessarily annoying moments

Reception
The game received generally mixed to positive reviews from critics according to review aggregator Metacritic. The PC version has 78/100, the PS4 version has 73/100 and the Xbox One has 76/100.

The game also received positive reception from the audience but mixed to negative review the Plants vs. Zombies fans due to it not being similar to the old games in any way (though eventually the reception would improve over time), with the PC version has 7.7/10, the PS3 and PS4 have 8.3/10 and 7.5/10 respectively and the Xbox 360 and Xbox One have 7.4/10 and 7.5/10 respectively.

Trivia

 * The game's title is a parody of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Likewise, the game's reveal at E3 2013 also parodies Battlefield 3 's teaser trailer. Coincidentally enough, Battlefield 3 was also published by EA.
 * This game, along with the rest of Plants vs. Zombies third-person shooter subseries are the only games not to be released on mobile p latforms, but rather on PC and consoles.