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Comic for: May 24th, 2013
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Plants vs. Zombies Adventures: "Ten Paces"
Posted: Friday May 24th, 2013 by

So, despite my best intentions I've been very casually playing Plants vs. Zombies Adventures on Facebook. And when people asked me what I thought, I found myself specifically not giving my initial impression which was "it's Farmville with zombies". In examining that reluctance to say it out loud I realized that I just didn't want to associate PopCap and Zynga in any way.

I actively denounced Farmville as a "virus" time and time again (confusing my mom more than once). And Plants vs. Zombies is high on my list of favorite games of all times. But, the truth as I see it is this: when you're at Home in the game, it is essentially Farmville with the occasional zombie attack. Okay, okay, I admit, that is an over simplified response to the game. It's just a comparison that jumps out clearly. The "Road Trip" portion of PvZA is essentially a tower defense game.

I think the monetization scheme is fairly clever. I keep catching myself looking at gem prices. But I'm annoyed but the scheme as well. The idea of buying gems is how you hide from the player how much money they're really spending. It's the same idea as SOE's Station Cash, Wii Points, Xbox Live Points, Credits, and chips in Vegas. But EA/PopCap decided to add another layer of obfuscation to the process. You buy gems with HUF. I'm assuming that's Hungarian Forint's. So now the gems you buy are purchased with HUF's which is converted from your local currency (USD in my case). It just feels... underhanded. So stay wary. Check your conversions. It's easy to get carried away and throw LOTS of money at "free" games. Set a budget for yourself.

tl:dr
I like it, but I'd be surprised if I was still playing it a month from now.

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