If you’re predisposed to hate Facebook games: high-five. I am totally with you on that. They tend to be, at best, wretched, and at worst, a plague on all who dwell on this fair planet.
However....
And note that I’m being incredibly cautious in recommending this because I’m fairly certain there must be a catch somewhere that I haven’t quite figured out.
It’s quite possible...
Please, please, please don’t bite me if it turns out PopCap have inserted some kind of instant viral cash eating plague within the game that I’ve yet to reach.
That Plants vs Zombies: Adventures is reasonable. It might even be quite good.
I KNOW.
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They say an Englishman’s home is his castle. It’s not. We have castles for that. Nevertheless, PopCap made the back garden the only tower worth defending on PC, and so after four years of portsto tamagotchis and toasters we're delighted to see them very nearly ready to unveil their second pop at the genre.
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EA have reportedly laid-off up to 10% of their entire workforce, with various sources reporting that the EA Partners label and two Vancouver game studios have become casualties of EA’s ongoing restructuring.
Over the past couple of weeks, EA have been cutting jobs across the company, particularly at studios focused on mobile platforms. In a statement explaining the lay-offs, EA have said they are pursuing new “priorities in new technologies and mobile". If EA really have let go 10% of their workforce, that would mean around 800 people have lost their jobs so far in this reorganization.
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Plants vs Zombies 2: Garden Warfare, the long-awaited sequel to PopCap’s very best game, is getting an early summer release, the developers have divulged. But they’d rather talk about Plant vs Zombies Adventures - a social game due to enter limited beta on Facebook during the belated British Spring.
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Spotlight
?Our Spotlight units plug content our journalists have made, that our advertisers want to promote. Sometimes the promotion is paid for, but the content they go to is always independent with no client oversight or approval.
I had a rummage down the back of the CMS to see if we’d ever written about Peggle on the site before, triumphantly pulled something out, and then hurriedly stuffed it back into the September drawer where it belongs. Oh, Julian. But we can do this without backup, can’t we? We can explain why somebody ought to play PopCap’s secondary opus, especially when its creators are politely refusing payment?
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EA registered website domains at three different addresses last week, and all were variations on the name ‘Plants vs Zombies Adventures’. Is this PopCap’s rumoured TF2-style shooter? Let’s label up the available evidence in plastic sandwich bags and see what’s what.
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Late last week, a story began to bounce about this cave we call the internet. It seemed to have the appearance of news, though it never kept still for long. It started as the hiring of two indies from Star Filled Studios, but grew to become a suggestion that Valve had acquired the former PopCap Plant vs Zombies team.
Not so, says Plants vs Zombies composer Laura Shigihara. We had it right the first time.Read and Comment
Last month PopCap announced that its Dublin studio was entering 'exploratory consultation'. The result of this month long investigation is that Popcap have decided to close their Irish department and layoff its 96 staff.Read and Comment
Peggle's both raised PopCap's profile and swollen its coffers. Though one department it's been lacking in since its release is a level editor that really lets us get to grips with peg-blasting game. What most of us wouldn't give to get our hands on an editor so we could play all through the night, creating levels - nay art - that intrigued, shocked, and broke laws for it's provocative splendour.
PopCap have finally pulled back the covers on why the game's been deficient in that creative region and it's all to do with willies, penises, and gentleman's umbrella stands.Read and Comment
Only yesterday we were bringing the heart-pleasing news that PopCap are hard at work on Plants Versus Zombies 2 and that it'll be shuffling up our lawn next year, now we learn that they've laid off a number of staff and that they may have been doing it on the sly for the past few months. And, as confirmed in a blog post this morning, the future of the Dublin studio is looking in jeopardy as it is facing 'Exploratory Consulation'. Which sounds pretty terrifying.
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After porting at the shore of every other platform on the Sea of Games, the good ship Zombie is set to return to PC in late Spring next year. The sequel is “germinating and advancing with rigor", say developer PopCap, apparently dropping their ‘mortis’.Read and Comment
