I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there is one part of Plants vs. Zombies we have found so far that, while not a major component of the overall game, is nevertheless at least neutral on the Zombie Rights front.

After you clear enough stages in the main story mode, perhaps more properly called the ‘Massacre Mode’, you unlock a sort of side project game called the Zen Garden, where you can grow plants in a peaceful greenhouse setting, with no conflict and no warfare between the Living and the Undead. Just you, some plants, and some accessories, plant food, bug spray and so forth.

It’s a fun little diversion for a few minutes per day. Tactically, it allows the player to raise funds they can use in the despicable virtual persecution of the Differently Animated, but as a self-contained mini-game, it’s.. well, Zen-like, at least by comparison. Just the peaceful cultivation of some virtual plants. Interestingly enough, the game is tied to real calendar days; plants only need so much attention within a 24 hour period, and then you’re more or less done, until the next day. This gives you an incentive to take five minutes a day and tend to your little garden of militarized vegetables, now home from the war, as it were.

If only the larger game could have been more like the Zen Garden.

Tags: Videogames

This entry was posted by John Sears on Friday, October 1st, 2010 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.