Plants vs. Zombies GOTY Edition

In the kaleidoscopic kingdom of video games, where triple-A giants clash and indie gems sparkle in obscurity, Plants vs. Zombies stands tall like a proud Peashooter on a lawn of mediocrity. It isn’t just a game—it’s a green-thumbed masterpiece, a whimsical warzone, and a blooming battle ballet where chlorophyll-packed heroes valiantly defend against the delightfully dumb undead.

Let’s get something straight from the get-go: Plants vs. Zombies is not merely a game—it is a revolution in sunflower-powered entertainment. Developed by the wizards at PopCap Games and unleashed upon the world in 2009, this horticultural tower defense titan sunk its leafy roots deep into the hearts of gamers across generations. It’s got style, strategy, and silliness—all wrapped in a delightfully addictive gameplay loop that feels like sipping lemonade on a sunny apocalypse.
At its core, the game is beautifully simple. You, the noble homeowner, are defending your front lawn (and later, your backyard and rooftop) from waves of increasingly ridiculous zombies using an arsenal of quirky, sentient plants. It's a botanical battleground where Sunflowers beam with economic potential, Peashooters spit green justice, and Wall-nuts stand stoically in the face of doom.

But Plants vs. Zombies isn’t just strategic—it’s strategically silly. The game dances on the line between tactical genius and goofy absurdity, making each level feel like a lovingly crafted cartoon episode. Need to stop a zombie disco dancer and his backup dancers from moonwalking into your house? There’s a plant for that. Annoyed by balloon-flying zombies? Boom. Cactus time. Every plant has a purpose, and every zombie is a beautifully bizarre puzzle piece in this garden of delight.
What really catapults Plants vs. Zombies into “Best Game Ever” territory is its mind-tickling design. The difficulty curve is smoother than butter on a warm biscuit. New mechanics are introduced with impeccable timing—never overwhelming, always inviting. The game has a way of whispering, “Just one more level,” until suddenly it’s 3 a.m. and you’re strategizing how best to combine Cherry Bombs with Chompers like a backyard Sun Tzu.

Let’s not forget the minigames, puzzles, and Zen Garden that sprout alongside the main campaign like bonus blooms. Want to bowl zombies with Wall-nuts? You got it. Fancy a round of "Zombiquarium" where you raise your own brain-eating fish? It’s all there, sprinkled with joy like confetti at a garden party.
Visually, PvZ is a watercolor wonderland. The art style is timeless—vibrant, cartoonish, and brimming with charm. Each plant has personality. Each zombie has pizzazz. The animations pop like popcorn in a microwave made of fun.

And the music? Oh, the music. It’s sunshine for your ears. From the breezy backyard tunes to the epic final boss theme, the soundtrack is a toe-tapping, head-bobbing masterpiece. And let’s not forget the absolute banger that is “Zombies on Your Lawn”—the credit song that could easily win a Grammy in a world that appreciates botanical ballads.

Even today, over a decade after its release, Plants vs. Zombies remains a cultural greenhouse of creativity and joy. It’s the game your little cousin loves, your grandma might beat you at, and your inner child will never forget. It has inspired sequels, spin-offs, plushies, and even philosophical debates about lawn care tactics during the zombie apocalypse.

While other games may boast bigger budgets or flashier explosions, Plants vs. Zombies wins by being clever, cozy, and impossibly charismatic. It’s a game that greets you with a smile, challenges you with a wink, and leaves you laughing as you plant a Snow Pea next to a scared-looking Potato Mine.

If video games were ice cream, Plants vs. Zombies would be a heaping scoop of pistachio delight with extra sprinkles—unexpected, utterly lovable, and sneakily addictive. It’s not just a game. It’s a lifestyle. A way of thinking. A gentle reminder that sometimes, all you need to stop the apocalypse is a garden full of friends and a whole lot of sunshine.

So yes, Plants vs. Zombies is the best game ever. Don’t @ me. Just pass the fertilizer and press play.

This is Plants vs. Zombies as God intended; no ads, no microtransactions, and most importantly, you still have all of your lawnmowers. 10/10, this is the game I remember from my childhood.

This is a fun game.
The graphics are nice,good music, and good game play.
It has a nice collection of different plant towers that each have their own ability.

My favorite game to play when i was little. Top game ever despite it begin so old and me checking it out a while later, i don't regret the amount of time little me spent on this game.

Plants vs. Zombies is the definitive tower defense game. Its visual concept is iconic, imaginative and memorable, making it stand out from others from its genre. You have the GREENEST THUMB known to MANKIND and your goal is to grow a wealth of plants to attack the EVIL ZOMBIES that want to come into your house and EAT YOUR BRAINZ! Awesome!

After completing the adventure mode, there is still a ton of content to complete in this game, such as completing adventure mode for a second time with every plant unlocked, or tons of fun mini games and puzzles, giving it a WEALTH of replay value. It's fun! And at a modest price! Give it a go!

Absolutely peak.

Decent story mode that's pretty fun and easy.
The mini games and puzzles are a blast to play through.

This game has much more than i gave it credit for when i was 12. the mechanics are more in depth than i would have given credit to such an old game, and the art style is super cute!

So I changed my mind about a lot of cards, you know, in the game over the years. Um, and you know, Starch Lord is definitely not an exception. Starch Lord is actually, if I'm being real, is a very powerful card. Uh, it can conjure an entire army of roots, really with just the flick of its wrist because of its ability. If you end up, I’m never gonna get through this. I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna get through this turning off the volume of these donations, man. *sigh If you are swarming the field with roots every single turn, the zombie really can't even move. Another reason why Starch Lord is a good card is because it's a very good answer to Z-Mech. It can actually destroy Z-Mech, uh, in an entire turn because it's conjuring roots every single turn. Your hand is always full and you're never gonna run outta options. But the real reason Starch Lord is truly powerful is not because of its ability to conjure roots. It actually has a secret ability in this game and that is that it's able to conjure, not very many people know this, able to conjure Cornucopia. And if you conjure Cornucopia, you're gonna have a never-ending stream of plants and you're gonna overwhelm the zombies defenses and really destroy everything, uh, in its path. If you have, of course, Starch Lord conjuring cards and Cornucopia making an unending stream of plants and that, my friends, is why Starch Lord is a very powerful card and it's still going in Piece of Trash Garbage Tier cuz Starch Lord will never be a good card. I'm never gonna change my opinion about it. Complete trash garbage. Never gonna be good. Never has been good. The card should get deleted if they ever make a Set 5 of this game. Absolute trash, garbage. I don't even care. There you go. I said it. Absolute trash. ChatGPT can take it to the bank. Next card.

Its addictive briiliant hilarious frustrating fantastic fun for all!! Its everything a game should be, oh and by the way, there's a Zombie on your lawn....

Great game, especially compared to the second game made by EA

This is a childhood game of mine, and I've always wanted to get 100% of the achievements ever since i got it on disc. This game was an amazing experience throughout, forever a special place in my heart, highly recommend. 100/100

the best pvz game i've played for example there's more minigames and survival which it's fun and it's so nostalgic playing this game.
i will give this 9.5/10

A timeless masterpiece

one of my favourite games as a kid to play on the ds,

zombie on your lawn is a masterpiece of a song jus like this game

be it some of this game time was leaving it open over night it still holds up as a fun td game that i would highly recommend to anyone.

Great TD game, lots of nostalgia since this was my first video game. Fun game, I always return to it at some point.

First playing this game is in a summer when I was a kid, I can still feel those old days.
This game graphics are not very detailed from today's perspective, but still bring me those happy times.
Everything, also me has changed, but when I was play PvZ, I am still the old me.

it's plants vs. zombies. it's an incredible game. maybe one of the best, honestly

This game has been around ever since I've existed, I love the in game progression as the difficulty ramps up naturally, and I'ts just one of those games that you can chill out and play

It's a classic for a reason, it's fun, it's simple and the sunflower song is a fricken BOP

Childhood <3
This game is the main reason, why actually I love plants. +10000/10

irreplaceable game. first time playing is in local clinic when getting circumcision.

I have 6 hours of gameplay when the main mode finished.

worth to buy and play if you ever thought of want it.

8/10

Plants vs. Zombies is a classic and comes highly recommended. An addicting and fun tower defense style game that helped move forward the genre.

one of the greatest games of all time. Extremely simple but deep game play that feels satisfying and fun. AMAZING soundtrack and art style. I legitimately cannot think of anything i do not like about this game. You are getting dozens of hours worth of fun for 4.99 so its well worth its price.

10/10 game, 100% recommend for both veterans and new players alike.

childhood nostalgia goated game 10/10 absolutely worth it to buy and play even for the 100th time

If you are experiencing crashes / errors while launching Plants vs Zombies and are playing on a Windows PC, you will need to use task manager (ctrl alt delete) ... Details (tab) ... right click on popcapgame1.exe and click end the process to close the game. Then, open regedit and navigate to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SteamPopCap\PlantsVsZombies and configure ScreenMode (REG_DWORD) from a value of 1 to a value of 0. 1 means fullscreen and 0 means window mode.

Then launch the game and play in window mode. If you want to play in fullscreen, press alt enter on your keyboard while playing Plants vs Zombies to go to fullscreen. However, after you're done playing fullscreen, be sure to do alt enter to make the game window mode again. If not, the next time you launch you'll have to repeat the instructions above.

This is a great game and I've played it many times over the years. I do wish that some of the plants didn't cost so much to use and that some of the store upgrades had lower prices as well. It limits one's play styles.

I hope this review helps other players. Please release a Steam version of Plants vs Zombies 2 as well with everything unlocked. Thanks Popcap.

This is just an obligatory upvote for this game. I love this game. It's a classic. It's one of the best. I have played and beaten this on multiple platforms multiple times. It's just one of those games.

Colorful tower defense game with quirky characters

One of the greatest games ever made. It's flawlessly designed with an amazing soundtrack and has changed the gaming industry forever.

The first game I ever played, still holds up pretty well. Fun and challenging.

A classic of a wonderfully fun game. It is simple, very creative, fun, and has a lot of effort put into it and it shows. An amazing game to play for all ages.

I love this game! Before I downloaded this game I was not really playing video games. I never wanted to play games that felt too violent, but killing zombies is a no-brainer (pun intended!) This game is clever and fun and solvable. I enjoy it thoroughly and would probably have advanced much further in my career had I spent as many hours training for that! Have fun!

I started playing this game at my great grandma's house on her old laptop, straight form the Popcap website. I've been playing this game since I was 5 in 2010, I've moved on to fan-games and mods of the original but every once in a while i come back to beat the adventure again. this game is literally the bedrock of my gaming addiction. absolute cinema.

Timeless. Fun game if you just want to chill and also if you want a challenge thanks to the endless modes.

Amazing game, genuinely. I love upgrading my plants and fighting off stuff like football zombies and gargantuars. And by far, the hardest world for me was the fog. That's really all I have to say. Overall, good game.

This game is over 15 years old, and I still repurchased to revisit (like a comfort snack). It’s the perfect desk job game—simple, addictive, and just strategic enough to make you feel like a genius while procrastinating actual work.

Old but gold. Looks simple but a pretty challenging game especially if you want to unlock all achievements. Worth playing and would highly recommend.

Playing since 2011 year as a kid, and still it's hard to stop. PVZ1 is Classic videogame in PVZ Series.

100% Achievement Review: A quick review based on my experience completing all the (available) achievements.

Title: Plants vs. Zombies

Summary: Tower-defense zombie game

Personal notes: Plants vs. Zombies is a classic tower defense game that I played growing up. The series itself has gotten many sequels, some good like garden warfare and some not so good like PvZ 2 (don't hate me). I think that the original is still a great if not the best game. It has a very solid first play-through for a TD game and has a lot of replay-ability be it through NG+ or the loads of mini games/puzzles they have. Achievement wise this game surprised me, there are quite a few specific requirement achievements that were kind of hard but the three that I mentioned below were by far the worst. The tree of wisdom requires so much plant food(money) to grow and the two mini-game streak achievements took me like multiple hours of gameplay. Not only is it highly RNG based but it requires some knowledge and strategy, for this I would recommend a YouTube video if you are going to try and attempt this. All in all, I would be quite surprised if you haven't heard of Plants vs Zombies and if you haven't, I would highly recommend starting with this one. It is an old but great classic.

Time it took to complete: 32hrs

Most difficult achievement(s):
- China Shop (Get to a streak of 15 in Vasebreaker Endless)
- Better Off Dead (Get to a streak of 10 in I, Zombie Endless)
- Towering Wisdom (Grow the Tree of Wisdom to 100 feet)

Difficulty rating:
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

Overall rating:
★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

I've played this game for years and still sometimes come back to it. I even completed it before it was even available on Steam. Way better than any of the spin offs or sequels. No microtransactions, no ads, just everything included in one buy.

A classic, and it holds up. Fun and surprisingly challenging strategy game.

Great game even after life a decade and a half.
Just hard/annoying to 100% with 6 hours currently and only having 5 aceivements

Plants Vs. Zombies is an absolute classic! This game is very deserving for you to buy on Steam! It's iconic, fun, and creative! There is so much content in this game! I honestly don't have much else to say. This is the best main series PvZ game. Mostly because of the micro-transactions for the later life of PvZ2. And because Popcap apparently doesn't know how to make a good game anymore.... The multiple PvZ3 public alphas are horrable! They somehow keep making them worse! But the OG is amazing. So go play pick this game up!

10/10 game. Meticulous game design, ethereal soundtrack, endlessly replayable. Hands down, greatest game ever published.

this game is so super duper cool and you can plant the zombies and plant the zombies and zombie the plants, dave/10 would recommend

A little tedious in longer sessions, but extremely enjoyable in smaller portions.
Even without the nostalgia this game is a blast.

What a classic man, I’ve played and beaten this game so many times over the years.

and for a game as old as this to (in my opinion) still hold up very well in the modern day, I think it’s just awesome.

I kind of dislike where EA took the series but at least we got GW2 out of it, so it isn’t all bad.

All in all, I will always love this game for the memories and fun it’s given me over the years.

Thank you PopCap for pvz1.

This game is very fun. I'm a kid too, so there's no nostalgia that may blind me.

one if the best games of all time. I've spent a big part of my childhood playing it, I am still figuring out new combos to plant on survivals)))

wow! this plant sure is vs. zombies game of the year edition!! you could even call it a....plants vs. zombies game of the year edition...