Plants vs. Zombies™

A zombie invasion is a strange thing to prepare for, but a garden full of armed plants turns out to be the perfect defence. Plants vs. Zombies is the tower-defence classic: zombies shuffle in from the right of your lawn in lanes, and you plant rows of defenders to stop them before they reach your front door and, well, your brains.

Your arsenal grows to 49 plants, and each earns its place. Peashooters fire down the lane, Wall-nuts soak up damage, Cherry Bombs clear a whole patch in one go, and Sunflowers quietly fund the whole operation by producing the sunlight you spend on new plants. Against them come 26 kinds of zombie, from bucketheads who shrug off peas to pole-vaulters who simply jump your first line.

The Adventure mode runs to 50 levels and keeps changing the ground rules: front lawn by day, then night levels with mushrooms, fog that hides half the board, a swimming pool that splits the lanes, and finally the rooftop, where plants need flowerpots to stand on. Coins earned along the way buy extras like a pet snail and power-ups, and 46 achievements give perfectionists something to chase.

It is funny, gentle to learn, and sneakily hard in the later stages, which is one reason it won more than 30 Game of the Year awards and still holds up today. The game is free with optional in-game purchases of coins. If you have never played the game that made tower defence a household thing, this is the place to start.