Of Plants, Zombies, and Tower Defense Games
Almost everyone in the world is on Facebook. The ultra popular social network site claims to have over a billion subscribers worldwide. Some Facebook users don’t even have computers, spending hours and hours online in Internet café shops; while others brave their governments just to get hooked with friends on Facebook. Facebook is banned in China, Iran, Syria, and Vietnam.
I remember one thing that catapulted Facebook into incredible fame but many people seem to be forgetting – “Plants vs. Zombies”. When social network was new, people got very interested but wasn’t really sure what to make of it. Facebook didn’t start social networking. There were AOL, SixDegrees, Friendster, and MySpace, but they didn’t take off. Why? They didn’t have games.
I got hooked (along with millions of people, I think) on Facebook via Plants vs. Zombies. This computer game literally took the world by surprise. I was doubtful, at first. I thought, how could a simple, cartoony, 2-D video game be better than what I used to play on Playstation and XBox? But I tried it anyway and got hooked for hours straight until I was done with the game.
But I didn’t just play Plants vs. Zombies. I also called my wife and kids, told them about it, and played with them. And then we all got hooked on Facebook.
Plants vs. Zombies also made another computer game genre popular – tower defense games. The plot is simple and very similar to flowers, herbs and mushrooms fighting off zombies and monsters. Gamers would need to strategically place towers on spots that could make it easy for them to kill attacking monsters. If monsters destroyed the towers first and run over them to get to the base, it’s Game Over.
The characters are cartoony, cute and very colorful. Music and soundtrack is playful, and monsters are typically cute as well. Tower defense games are strategy games that can get gamers playing for hours. The games are surprisingly very engaging and fun.
Hundreds of tower defense games may be played for free online at Tower Defense Heaven. The most popular ones are Radiant Defense, Sentinel, Babel Rising, Ariel Wars, and Samurai and Zombie Defense.