Game probably isn't for the BF4 or COD crowd.

Plants vs Zombies in a third person shooter; Game is easy to pick up even for people who don't like shooters or are good at them

Limited modes and maps; Splitscreen needs some work; Splitscreen should be for online play as well

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare is the perfect antidote to Call of Duty and Battlefield fatigue, replacing the grim, decrepit, gray-and-brown battle zone with vibrantly colorful gardens and crypts, where unlikely nemeses face off in hilarious, and strategic, skirmishes. The game takes Plants vs.

In the space of three weeks, EA is set to release two separate multiplayer-only, Xbox exclusive (well, not available on PS4 anyway) squad-based shooters. Neither are free-to-play, and amazingly neither feature nefarious microtransactions.

When EA and Pop Cap revealed Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare at E3 back in June of 2013 I'll have to admit that I was counted among the skeptics. Not only that I was surprised to see that a mobile game that was more based on a tower defense sort of model was making the leap into the world of...

The least brown shooter ever made, with the colourful graphics and accessible controls supported by an imaginative and surprisingly well-crafted online experience.

Varied and generally well balanced character classes; Well-crafted maps and a great sense of humour; Garden Ops is great; No microtransactions (or at least not yet)

Imprecise weapons and often vague impact animation; No single-player and very limited split-screen options

Garden Warfare respects its roots by preserving its characters and their humor and skillfully adapting their charm to a third-person shooter. A few clever twists on the standard modes give the action some fresh personality, and the co-op survival mode is a fun homage to the original games.

Charming characters; Fun modes; Solid shooting; Good map design

Limited split screen

I'm suffering from shooter fatigue. I abandoned the genre once the video-game industry became oversaturated with drab, pseudo-realistic military skirmishes that I could only differentiate by the name on the game's packaging.

Incredibly fun shooting action; Surprisingly deep strategy; Addictive sticker system; Charming graphics and animation

Environments not very interactive; Local split-screen co-op requires Xbox Live Gold

It's Plants Versus Zombies still, just turned from a 2D plain to a third-person one, and the plants are no longer rooted to one spot. There may be noses turned up at the franchise extension, claims of a cynical money grab, but what you got here is a very fun title that exudes the stereotypical...

Like homemade fertiliser, it does the job, but the proper stuff gets it done better. Also it occasionally smells. Like poop.

A multiplayer shooter for the whole family; The soundtrack is great; right down to the hooting celebrations of your leafy brethren

Lacks the tightness and variety to make it more than a babysitting aid; Looks lovely but without the visual feedback that's become a staple of quality shooters

Competitive shooters are serious business. They depict epic battles between modern-day soldiers and insurgents in war-torn cities, or conflicts between space marines and aliens on distant worlds, or skirmishes between battle-hardened men and subterranean creatures who try to slice each other to bits...

Pleasantly lighthearted tone and colorful; appealing environments; Good assortment of well-balanced class abilities; Gardens & Graveyards game type fosters fun; hotly contested battles

A bit insubstantial for a $40 game; Process for unlocking class variants is frustratingly random