In my opinion, video games don’t fall into the sequel-itis trap that so many movies do. Maybe the stories still suffer a bit but you can always wow the audience with updates to the gameplay, graphics, maybe characters, you get the idea. Recent ones that come to mind are Dead Space 2, inFamous 2, Uncharted 2, Batman Arkham City, and so on.

I’ve previously taken a look back at the original Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare and reviewed Battle for Neighborville when it released, and had a lot of fun playing both games. That leaves the middle title, Garden Warfare 2 that has yet to be touched upon. So when thinking up what to say about this one, what could possibly be said? Did it have more to offer than Garden Warfare 1, but then maybe not as much as Battle For Neighborville?

In my opinion, that’s only partly true. Sitting down with Garden Warfare 2 again after not playing it for a year helped refresh my memory and also further reinforced my opinion of Battle For Neighborville which I think is a very strong title with great single player content, but it didn’t carry over a few things from Garden Warfare 2 that I really missed.

The story at this point is a little inconsequential. The zombies have turned suburbia into Zomburbia and the plants are trying to take it back. This eternal feud and stalemate doesn’t really need much more than that. It was Neighborville before they gave it that name. But what’s under the surface shows how they built upon Garden Warfare 1 and was an indicator of what was to come in Battle for Neighborville.

First and foremost, new classes were added. Some of which are my favorites. In addition to all the original classes in the first game, this time they added new plants Citron, Kernel Corn, and Rose. Kernel Corn feels kind of average but is still easily my favorite of the bunch these days but Citron is really strong with his lazer beam and a shield as well. I’ve never understood the point of Rose, though. I guess she’s a crowd-control sort of class but hell if I’ve ever been good with her. Also she’s really wiggly and wavey, like she belongs in Cuphead or something.

On the zombies side, you’ve got Super Brainz, the Imp, and Captain Deadbeard. Deadbeard is basically the zombies’ version of Cactus with his ability to snipe and use a parrot drone. Imp’s biggest strengths are that not only is he small and hard to hit, but he can call down a mech to help soak up damage and blast enemies as well. Super Brainz is fun to watch and has some cool melee attacks, though I’ve never been good with him.

These 6 new classes rounded out an already strong cast of characters, and jumping into multiplayer with this was lots of fun. I Did try multiplayer again and at least when I tried to log in, I couldn’t find any games to jump into. BUT – and this is a big butt – like a Sir Mix-A-Lot quality butt that I like and cannot lie – this game lets you play multiplayer with bots. Beautiful, wonderful bots that don’t call you racial slurs when they kill you or ragequit when you’re finally about to win a match. Bots that don’t just stand there in a corner like that guy at the end of Blair Witch because they’re AFK and walking the dog, their girlfriend needed to get picked up from work, or maybe they’re just drunk and got distracted by cat videos on their phones. You get the point. Bots rarely let you down like the humans and they’re always up for a game. Also there’s split-screen if you’ve got a buddy on the couch with you, and I’d argue that you may not even miss playing online if you’ve got your friends and bots.

The sticker shop is back in this one and mostly unchanged, and honestly I still prefer it over the way you purchase rewards in Battle for Neighborville.

So all the non-seasonal multiplayer modes that come with the game are here for you to play with humans, or with bots. Turf Takeover, Vanquish and Team Vanquish, Suburbination, and one of my favorites, Herbal Assault. It’s an objective-based map but with each goal the map expands. Sounds pretty standard but then the maps in this, in my opinion are the best of all 3 games. They’re large, the themes of each level are fun, and I just think the variety is better here than in either of the other games.

That said, the only other dedicated single player content you’ll get is in the form of the Zomburbia, which you’re free to explore and unlock chests, kill enemies from the other side, and do some side quests for characters who are scattered all around. You can also attempt to gain control of Zomburbia by raising your side’s respective flag, which starts a king of the hill match where you have to survive increasingly difficult waves of enemies. It’s fun, but it’s not nearly as fleshed out (LOL) as Battle for Neighborville’s hub and single player zones to run around in. If you’re not into that, then you can still explore each team’s base to check out your rewards you’ve collected and play multiplayer matches or garden or graveyard ops.

The sticker shop is back in this one and mostly unchanged, and honestly I still prefer it over the way you purchase rewards in Battle for Neighborville. The stickers were fun to collect and in this one you can open up your sticker book and get an anxiety attack over all the stuff you’re missing. Characters and customizations from Garden Warfare 1 carry over to this one, though unfortunately none of this carries over into Neighborville. I still don’t know why they didn’t include it, but then trying to understand anything EA does is like getting on the ship in Event Horizon, and only leads to madness and death. Or just being broke. You could go either way there.

Last couple things I want to cover are character promotions and side quests. This is the first game in the series where you can promote your characters to higher ranks every 10 levels. There’s perks like a new title and you also get coins for doing it. Obviously you can dump all that into buying more stickers and such. The side quests also get you coins, but also boost your xp multiplier the more you do, maxing out at double the XP. You can add and drop quests as you like, and they’re separated into plant quests, zombie quests, and multiplayer quests. These can be done in single player or multiplayer. From personal experience, it’s really hard to put the game down as you’re working to knock these out.

So there you have it. Garden Warfare 2 continues to be my favorite out of the series, and as much as I still play Battle for Neighborville and enjoy it, there are parts where I can’t help but compare it to Garden Warfare 2. It’s a great gamee, and if you don’t already have it, the next time you see it for dirt cheap on the Xbox or Playstation stores, feel confident in picking it up and at least enjoying spending time with the bots and on split-screen with your friends. I honestly feel like unless they make additional content for Neighborhville, Garden Warfare 2 could possibly outlast it.