By Jamaal Ryan
When we think of shooters in the Xbox One, we instantly
bring our minds to Titanfall, the highest praised new gen title from Respawn.
However along with Titanfall, another (allegedly timed) console exclusive was
debuted at E3 last year, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare.
Many shooters, including Titanfall, are drawing inspiration
from a very familiar shooter formula that generated from last generation. Not
Garden Warfare however. The PvZ spin-off is a third person “free running” shooter,
a style of the genre that had quickly become unpopular since Gears of War
ignited the third person cover shooter sub genre on the Xbox 360.
Looking at the class of recent and soon to be released
shooters on the market, Garden Warfare is vastly different than most of what
players have and will be exposed to in the near future. PvZ: Garden Warfare has
elements of Battlefield and Team Fortress to help design the franchise’s
strategic theme, but developer PopCap is working to make Garden Warfare character
driven, each bringing their incredibly diversified characteristic offerings to
the battlefield.
We’ve seen the All-Star, the Engineer, the Scientist, the
Foot Soldier, the Pea Shooter, the Cactus, the Chomper, and the Sunflower, some
of which have their own cosmetic as well as functional variants. Some of these
classes, such as the Cactus and the Engineer, can deploy drones that can be
controlled for aerial offensive attacks. The All-Star and the Scientist can
close the gap quickly – the All-Star’s being more offensive and the Scientist’s
being more evasive. And the Pea Shooter as well as the Sun Flower can trade
immobility for maximum fire power.
One of my favorite is the Sunflower’s groupie assets, making
them a vital team player. Like one of the Scientist varients, the Sunflower can
drop healing geysers for their teammates, but they can also attach direct
healing tethers to other players. Other favorites will sure to be the Cactus’
Walnut Barriers and the Engineer’s use of his jackhammer to increase his
mobility. All of the classes in Garden Warfare play distinct roles ranging from
offense, to defense, to team support in combat.
What excites me the most about Garden Warfare is the
versatility in its game modes, offering experiences to different types of co-op
and competitive players. Team Vanquish lets players engage one another in their
crazy version of a team death match affair, Gardens and Graveyards is similar
to Battlefield’s Rush and Conquest modes, and along with wave based co-op play in
Garden Ops (my always favorite style of cooperative match types), the Xbox One
gets Boss Mode as an exclusive.
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare launches at the near perfect
date of Feb 18th, three weeks before Titanfall’s release. Let’s hope
that PopCap’s new shooter won’t just be a delicious filler before Respawn’s
highly anticipated debut, but will also have the staying power to hold a strong
community for months to come (Note: PopCap has said to offer bi-monthly DLC
post launch of PvZ: GW).
And after checking out all the crazy unique footage on
the game, it sure as hell has a chance.
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