Halloween is (almost) here. Drop the candy and get your keyboard and mouse ready, because here comes a trio of zombie-themed computer games.
Plants vs. Zombies
Zombies also eat plants, so drop walnuts
near the front to hold them off
Hordes of zombies are approaching your house. The only thing stopping them from eating your brains is the garden of misfit plants you build over the course of the game.
The zombies approach from the right side of the screen and advance towards the left. Sunlight, represented as tiny suns, periodically drops onto the screen; clicking on it allows you to stockpile points that may then be spent on buying plants. When you have enough saved to purchase a plant, you click on its related seed packet at the top of the screen, then over a patch of ground to place the new plant. That's the gameplay in a nutshell.
The difficulty of Plants vs. Zombies ramps up gradually as you progress through the levels, and new features unfold throughout the game. For example, you'll typically win a new plant type after winning a level, and these can radically alter your strategy. There are five different environments that will affect which plants you choose for protection as well -- at night you'll generally use mushrooms, and later a pool is introduced that will require you to use aquatic plants.
There is a limit to how many plant types you can bring with you when starting a round, so it becomes important to select those that are most likely to be useful for the environment you're playing in and the types of zombies you'll be facing.
Plants vs. Zombies makes for excellent casual gaming. Everything you need to know to play is explained over the course of the game. While it occasionally becomes challenging, finishing a level feels rewarding. And it's also possible to play a round or two in 10 minutes, making it a little easier to fit into the end of a busy day.
You can try it on the PopCap website for free, albeit with frequent advertising between levels. The full version has more content and no advertising.
Atom Zombie Smasher
Save the green squares and defeat the pink
squares with the tools at your disposal.
Hordes of zombies are attacking various territories on a map. Your job is to evacuate these territories using a collection of mercenaries, and, if possible, to obliterate all zombies from these territories before nightfall.
When you choose a territory to evacuate, Atom Zombie Smasher brings you to a city map for the battle. Your primary tool is a helicopter, which you'll land at various points of the map. The helicopter sounds a horn to alert people on the ground to collect at its landing position. It has a limited carrying capacity and will need to make multiple trips, but if zombies (called "Zed") get too close it will leave early. Other forces are gradually earned as you proceed through the game, including infantry, artillery, landmines, barricades, and snipers.
If you evacuate the required number of people from a territory, you drive the Zed from that portion of the map. If you actually destroy all the Zed in the city before nightfall, you capture that territory and it will grant you victory points on every turn thereafter. You will also accumulate points based on how many people you rescue and the difficulty of the territory you were contesting.
Zed (purple diamonds) can reinforce up
to level 4, becoming more difficult to defeat.
You are ultimately racing the Zed to a victory point limit, typically 6000 points for normal games. Like you, they earn victory points for captured territory, but they will often claim two or three territories after a turn. There are other thresholds on your victory point bars that will trigger game modifications, such as newer and tougher types of Zed showing up or additional anti-Zed weaponry becoming available.
As with the previous title, it's possible to play Atom Zombie Smasher for 10 or 15 minutes at a sitting if you don't want to spend all night with it. It comes with a slew of customizations that you can use to make the game easier, harder, or simply different from the last time it was played.
Left 4 Dead 2
Seriously, the mood is awesome.
Hordes of zombies are coming after you and up to three of your friends as you try to survive any of a number of horror movie-styled scenarios. Scavenge for weapons and ammunition, and use them wisely against the variety of zombies thrown in your path as you make your way to the rescue vehicle.
Beyond the generic zombie, Left 4 Dead 2 occasionally introduces special zombies into the mix, such as the Tank (extremely strong and difficult to kill), the Boomer (explodes and covers everybody in its radius with bile, temporarily blinding them), or the Witch (extremely strong zombie that can usually be avoided by turning off the flashlight and not firing in its direction.) Some zombies can render a player helpless by choking or knocking them to the floor; this raises an alert to the other players to let them know that one of them needs to provide assistance.
The variety and placement of zombies changes every time you play, helping to keep the game fresh.
As with Half-Life 2 or Portal 2, it's difficult to convey in text just how superb the mood and pacing of the game is. Appropriate attention has been given to the music, settings, and style of graphics, and it really feels like an interactive zombie flick. Each scenario has its own particular characteristics that keep it unique. It's even possible to play as one of the zombies online against other players.
If a player goes down, one of the other three characters can revive him/her within a certain time limit. Past that limit, the player is "dead" but can be "found" again behind one of the closed doors on the map. Kind of a weird gameplay mechanic, but I like it.
Teamplay in Left 4 Dead 2 is vital, and it's best enjoyed with three friends with headphones and microphones. If played with fewer the computer will run the other characters, and this sometimes leads to stupid game-ruining moments when a computer-controlled character gets stuck or trips a car alarm or startles the Witch or any number of other irritating behaviors.
Left 4 Dead 2
Studio: Valve
Genre: Action/First Person Shooter
Available for: PC, Mac, Xbox 360
Price: $20 ($60 for 4-pack on Steam, $30 for Xbox 360 version)
Demo: none available
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All of these games are a bit older and tend to go on sale periodically. Steam is currently running one through Oct. 31 and all three games are discounted on there (Plants vs. Zombies is $5, Atom Zombie Smasher is $3.40, Left 4 Dead 2 is $6.79). But be aware that with Steam you will require an Internet connection and games you buy are tied to your Steam user account, so even if you're putting the games on a family computer you may still need to buy one copy of a game for each person that will play it.
Happy Halloween!