Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2

While not as dark and gritty as your traditional multiplayer focused shooter, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 knows exactly what makes those games tick, with a very successful variety of fun-to-use classes and detailed, vibrant maps and game modes. It may look cute and silly on the surface, but look a little bit deeper and you’ll find one of the more complex and engaging multiplayer shooters that I’ve come across.

The main game hub is known as the Backyard Battleground, and this is where Plants and Zombies each have their protected base with a sort of open battle zone in the middle. Here you can access the single player missions (which are essentially offline versions of the multiplayer game modes), the ability to swap characters and access stickers which can be earned to purchase upgrades or you can just wander into the open battle zone and practise killing your enemy. It’s a nice way of minimising the use of menus and keeps things moving along at a good pace. I have to commend the writing here as well, even though it does verge on ridiculous sometimes, that’s kind of the point, and I often smirked at the clever quips of the characters I was talking to.

There is really just so much variety in how each class feels when you’re playing as them that it’s genuinely fun just trying each one out, even if you don’t master them quickly. Finding the right moment to trigger each of their special abilities while factoring cool-down timers can be the difference between victory and defeat, so you’ll need to be tactical and not just run in guns blazing. Being able to spawn little helpers to either guard an area, provide healing or create additional distractions when you’re attacking just adds to the chaos, but it never feels too overwhelming or unfair, even when you are losing terribly.