{sidebar id=3}{sidebar id=1}Someday the need may arise for you to destroy the zombie hordes in a unique way and with a variety of different tools, you will be thankful as heck you found this game, because your skills are going to be honed!  Perhaps you are more interested in a tower defense game that is refreshingly fun, amusing, with lots of different things to do and incredibly accessible at the same time. If either of these things is your cup of tea, Plants Versus Zombies is just the title the doctor ordered.

This a very cheap and enjoyable game for the PC with quite a bit to do for $10 via steam by Popcap games.

This game has a variety of different play modes to unlock, over 25 different types of zombies, about 49 different plants and other upgrades.  By completing the game in adventure mode, other modules are unlocked such as many games and puzzles.  Some of those mini games include zombie bowling, whack a zombie, and other secondary games.

It has a somewhat cartoony type of artwork but is not overly so. The game starts out very easy in the first few levels and gets progressively harder as you go along if you do not use the proper strategies for each level.  Overall, the entire game has an average difficulty level compared to most other video games.

For the deaf gamers, the game is mostly accessible, with only one exception.  When the Zombies first start to make the approach, they make noises and say a couple lines of dialogue that are not subtitled. This has no effect on your gameplay on earlier levels; the later levels that have fog which cover half of the screen may be slightly more difficult to plan your attack on. A few of the different zombie types have unique sounds. This may be an issue on the levels with fog. All character dialogue is done by speech bubbles, which makes the game more accessible to the deaf gamer. Overall, this game is highly approachable for hearing-impared gamers.

Another strong point of the game is the approachability for people with color blindness or difficulty distinguishing colors from another. All the different plants are easily distinguished from one another and have pop-up information when you are selecting which plants you want to use for your current level. Every icon is clearly distinguished except possibly for two mushrooms that are slightly similar to one another. Pop-up information also helps to tell the difference when selecting from your inventory. Colorblind gamers have almost nothing to worry about when purchasing this enjoyable game.

Gamers that have mobility issues or cannot use the keyboard can enjoy this game in most cases on equal ground. The entire game is controlled by the mouse and left button except for when you are in putting your name. The positioning of your plants and various other tools are controlled by the mouse, as well as picking up coins for upgrades. Simplified controls make this game highly accessible and enjoyable to almost any degree of mobility impairment.

Popcap equals accessibility

AbleGamers sat down with George Fan, creator of Plants Versus Zombies, to pick his brain about his idea of zombie fun.

AbleGamers: Where did the idea for this interesting title come from?

George Fan: Well I'd just finished Insaniquarium, and was noodling around with some new game ideas, one of which was a more defense oriented sequel to Insaniquarium. At the time I was also playing some tower defense mods in Warcraft III and thought "What if I used plants as towers? Plants are great because you can give them lots of character, and no one expects them to move." So out went the fish, in came the plants. Around that time, however, a ton of gardening games started coming out in the casual games space, and man, I just couldn't take it! I didn't want the game to just blend in amongst all the other gardening games. And that's how the zombies came about. I thought "No way is anyone else gonna make a game that features both plants *and* zombies!"  And I was right!

AG:  Would Popcap consider putting a default name in the box, such as player 1, for those that cannot type?

GF: We generally don't put a default "Player 1" in the name box because we find that if we do, players tend to leave "Player 1" as their name. We want to encourage players to personalize their experience as much as possible.

AG:  Will there be similar free expansion packs like the game Peggle?

GF: You'll just have to wait and see ;)

Popcap is well known to be the leader of accessibility in the casual gaming field.  We wanted to take this opportunity to ask him, what his opinion of accessibility is.

AG: How much does the accessibility of a game weigh in during the design process?

GF: There is sort of an unspoken requirement that all PopCap games on the PC *must* be playable with just 1 mouse and 1 mouse-button. (Some Popcap games let you use right-click, but it's not necessary to play the game). So in that sense, game accessibility weighs in right from the beginning. A lot of the design process flows from this one mouse-button requirement.

Popcap has created another nearly perfectly accessible video game that is enjoyable to the masses. This is a no-brainer for fans of tower defense and casual games alike. Whether you love bashing zombies or growing hostile plants, Plants vs. Zombies will give you hours of entertainment with mini-games and puzzles to add even more re-playability!

(Mark Barlet and Steve Spohn also contributed to this story)