I went through the usual motions in EQ yesterday and got another handful of AAs and another rank of the research mastery skill, but what I was really after was some horticulture.

Plants Vs. Zombies is kind of like a tower defense game, though it’s a bit more restrictive in that there are specific lanes that the zombies follow and you have to defend each lane separately by placing plants with various attacks and defenses. And, of course, there are different kinds of zombies with various attacks and weaknesses. Some plants are only usable at night, when you have less ‘sunshine’ to spend, and you can only take a limited set of them into each battle.

So far I’ve made it through the first two chapters, which take place in your front lawn first during the day and then at night, and now I’m in the middle of chapter 3 in the back yard, which adds a pool in the middle and some new plants and zombies to handle it. There are also some minigames at certain points, like zombie bowling, where you launch ‘wall-nut’ plants to try and knock them over as they shuffle towards the house.

It’s fun so far, though it’s a bit more frantic than I expected since you have to react quickly to which zombie types appear in each lane, while collecting falling sunshine drops and trying to develop your ‘economy’ without leaving yourself vulnerable by not building enough attackers in time. It’s trickier than it looks.

I also tried out Puzzle Kingdoms, a more traditional fantasy-based sequel to Puzzle Quest. The focus this time is more strategic though, as you command a group of troops and attack buildings rather than do quests. Combat involves matching by sliding entire rows and columns rather than switching spots, and your goal is to build up attack points for each of your troops that will let them attack and do damage when you’ve finally collected enough.

It’s different enough from the original Puzzle Quest to be interesting, but it feels a bit unfinished. You can do things like garrison troops at buildings you’ve conquered, but there’s no point to it since the enemy never counter-attacks.