Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville

Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville is the natural evolution of the Garden Warfare saga, now with new animations, a new set of maps, and modes that ensure the usual jokes.

Battle for Neighborville's goofy, cartoonish world makes it a shooter appropriate for younger gamers, but don't dismiss it as a kids' game. The gameplay will please most shooter fans, and it's good to have an option that doesn't take itself too seriously and in which the players are focused on having a fun time. It's a great change of pace for when you want a more laid-back but still fun shooter experience.

An endearing shooter that builds on strong roots to excellent and often hilarious effect. [Issue#184, p.70]

Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville brings us a different Plants vs Zombies experience. But despite its new characters and modes, PopCap and Electronic Arts have forgotten about the packs, which was one of the most important things of previous games. It's a good experience, but not as polished as we wished.

While it might not be every shooter fan's bag, Battle for Neighborville has certainly got the ability to entertain just about anyone... young or old, experience shooter player or first-timer.

Battle for Neighborville delivers exciting competitive and cooperative multiplayer, but an overly complicated economy and inconsistent PvE elements take away from the experience.

A welcome comeback of the first Garden Warfare's simplicity, added with some great options for single and co-op gameplay, even if we would have liked a bit more innovation and content.

Quotation forthcoming.

Battle for Neighborville is fun and bursting with humour. It’s packed with content that you can play co-operatively in PvE and competitively in multiplayer, but some balancing issues at present can make the competitive side feel a bit of a slog.

While it seems that Popcap and EA have played it somewhat safe, Neighborville is still an interesting game to play, and with more of an emphasis on the story mode, including the return of the gnomes to find and vanquish, there is plenty of fun to be had here. Just don't expect to have your socks blown off with the originality on display.

Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville isn’t a huge evolution for the series — but it is mostly an improvement, and appropriately prepared for the persistent multiplayer culture we find ourselves in. Players jumping straight from Garden Warfare 2 to Neighborville may find the action too similar, though they will at least appreciate the distractions of some exciting new classes, new maps and a more engaging story mode.

A fun experience with tons of content to grind through but Battle for Neighborville never gives players meaningful incentives to stick around long enough to see most of it.