Raise a garden or a tomb, place junior plants or zombie bots in the pots or soil provided, then fight off wave after wave of foes. Even then there’s a tendency to rely on simple base defence missions.
Sure, break it down, and each is little more than a series of matches against CPU-controlled enemies, broken down with the odd search or fetch quest. Solo content? It turns out that both the plants and the zombies have their own parallel campaigns, following the valiant veg on a career in tactical espionage action and the brains-obsessed zombies on a mission to make it to the top of Doctor Zomboss’s team. At either end sits the plant and zombie HQs, where you can change character, switch sides and get stuck into rest of the game’s solo content. This ‘Backyard Battleground’ is Garden Warfare 2’s central hub, open for exploration with activities scattered through, including some addictive target-shooting mini-games and a simple variant of the classic Horde/Firefight game style. After a short opening cinematic you’ll find yourself a sunflower on the wrong side of town – or Zomburbia as the locals call it. All the same, it might be a while before you notice. It’s still primarily an online multiplayer game, pitching teams of walking, blasting vegetation against teams of grey-skinned, goggle-eyed morons. There’s no three-month wait here for the rest of the package to be released. Perhaps the biggest surprise about this sequel is that, after the patchy releases of other big-name shooters – Star Wars: Battlefront and Splatoon, we’re looking at you – this one launches feeling complete.
Well, Garden Warfare 2 is a bigger, better version, complete with more characters, more maps and more modes. Maybe the original didn’t get the respect it deserved – too bright, too cartoony, too tied to casual mobile games – but in its character-based gameplay and witty appropriation of CoD clichés, it was a seriously smart online shooter. With Garden Warfare 2, it’s time to stop treating the Plants vs.
Available on Xbox One, PS4, PC (Xbox One and PS4 versions tested)