I don’t really care for tower defense games anymore. The genre has become over-saturated and stale. But I do love Plants vs. Zombies, so when the sequel was released this last month, I was very excited. The cutesy art style and tough, but fair gameplay appealed to me on many levels. I had a ball with the first game and was eager for more. The fact that the game was now free-to-play with microtransactions didn’t give me a bit of pause. I’ve never once been tempted to buy my way through a game before, so why should PvZ 2 be any different?
Well, PopCap has managed to do the unthinkable because I am very close to dropping $5 just to get to the next area. But not because I am failing. On the contrary, I have beaten all the levels required to access the next area. But in order to progress, you need Stars, which are earned by replaying prior levels you have already beaten and completing certain challenges, which grant you Stars. In the first area, this was not an issue. You needed 15 Stars and I had 8, so I only needed 7 more to get things moving. But when I finished the second area, I had 9 Stars, but now you need 30. So I have to grind 21 levels in order to get the Stars required to play further. Continue reading Plants vs. Zombies 2 Grinds To A Halt