Plants Vs Zombies Secrets

[Dunstan Jomphe]

Thispage contains a list of cheats, codes, Easter eggs, tips, and other secrets for Plants vs. Zombies for Xbox 360. If you've discovered a cheat you'd like to add to the page, or have a correction, please click EDIT and add it.

3) Create a front runner where none exists! Pole vaulting zombies run fast until they vault over a nut, and the newspaper zombie runs fast after getting the paper destroyed by a nut. Just let them run a little bit down the lawn before sending a nut their way.

4) Just because you have nuts does not mean you have to use them. This is where "Nerves of Steel" comes into play. When there are a few zombies ambling down the lawn without a clear ricochet shot, wait a little bit to see if more of their friends will step out to play. They can always be killed once they cross the red line.

6) Reserve the exploding nuts. Try not to use those nuts unless a mob crosses the line, or there are not enough nuts or room to clear out a hard to kill zombie. Use the regular walnuts for the zombies that have not reached the red line.

7) Don't use exploding nuts to kill pole vaulting zombies directly. Pole vaulting zombies only jump obstacles in their own lane. A pole vaulting zombie who has not vaulted yet will safely jump over explosions or nuts in their own lane; so find a neighbor in the next lane and time the nut to hit when the pole vaulting zombie gets close to the neighbor.

It goes without saying that we love Plants vs. Zombies here at Ars Technica, especially the pocket-sized iPhone version of the game that was just released. If you haven't played it, you can download the free demo here and even get 10 percent off if you decide to buy the full game. It's a bizarre, funny, and addictive strategy title with a quirky art style, but the most surprising thing about it is that it was originally supposed to be an entirely different game.

What many gamers don't realize is that Plants vs. Zombies started out as a sequel to Insaniquarium, a strategy game that involves growing an aquarium's population while simultaneously protecting the fishes from an alien invasion. PopCap recently shared some original concept sketches for with us, and the evolution from sequel to fully original title is fascinating.

According to the game's creator, George Fan, the development team wanted to create a game that was pretty different from Insaniquarium. "We knew we wanted to significantly change up the gameplay for the sequel," he said, "and [we were] leaning toward it to being more defense-oriented than the first Insaniquarium. During that time I was also playing a lot of tower defense games in Warcraft III, and realized that they had this innate appeal that made me think of fond childhood memories like building forts out of sofa cushions and watching Swiss Family Robinson. I really wanted to capture that appeal, and once I realized that plants and zombies made a much better theme for this game than fish and aliens, I shifted from creating a sequel into creating a whole new game."

In the top image, the alien featured is, "sort of a locust-alien," that never made it into the game. Meanwhile, the above picture shows the direction things were headed towards before zombies ended up taking on a starring role in the game. "Here we have some evolutions of some of the aliens in Insaniquarium," Fan explained. "You can see Psychosquid making a return, this time in a 'tank on a tank.' I had a couple of ideas for aliens that would burrow underground."

According to Fan, the move from Insaniquarium 2 to Plants vs. Zombies largely took place with the below image. Up until this point, the game had been set to feature standard tower defense gameplay; it also switched the game's antagonists, established the initial ideas for the peashooter unit, and also marked the first time that sunlight was considered as a resource.

"This sketch was an important one," Fan said. "It marked the biggest gameplay change during development, which was the change from traditional tower defense paths to the 5-lane linear gameplay you see in the finished product. It also marked the transition of the game's adversary from aliens to zombies, as evidenced by the multiple alien references and the zombie in the lower left. I believe it is also the first appearance of the all-important sunflower plant and the idea of sun as a resource. That seed-shooting tomato on the right eventually became the peashooter."

If you have played Plants vs. Zombies, you know how many different types of plants there actually are in the game. As it turns out, a ton of ideas for plants were considered. Looking through some of the sketches, one has to wonder why some plants never made through the screening process... though others were nixed for obvious reasons.

Fan clearly agrees, on both fronts. Some sketches looked great, but he couldn't figure out what such units would do against the undead hordes: "The peanut with the monocle probably would've taken us too far into infringement-land. I do like the carrot that's rocking out, even though I'm not sure what game-purpose he would serve. It would've been nice to get jolly-moustache-potato-man into the game."

One of the set of collectibles, a set of 30 Flags is a reference to the collectible flags retrieved by the Assassins in the Assassin's Creed franchise. All can be found in hard to access, high places. Each Flag is worth 500 Agility Points.

On the roof of the apartment building in the Slums, near the entrance to the underground parking lot quarantine zone, if a certain blue toolbox found back behind some crates and barrels is kicked about 74-75 times, the blueprints for the Korek Machete, a machete named after Korek, a developer of Dying Light can be obtained. While the player is kicking the toolbox, Crane makes several remarks to attempt to discourage the player from successfully opening the crate.

In the residence and safe-house of Ishaq which can be entered during and after the side mission "Do You Believe?", there is a skull on a stone with an eight-pointed star. Upon reaching and obtaining two different eyes for the skull at different parts of Old Town and placing both eyes into the skull's hollow eye sockets in one single game session, the blueprints for the hand of glova, which also appears as a developer's weapon in Dead Island, can be obtained. It is worth noting, that the original weapon in Dead Island itself is an Easter egg, referencing the Electro Bolt plasmid from BioShock. It allowed players to fire electricity from their hand, at the cost of stamina. When depleted of stamina, the medkit injection animation would play, a reference to use of the EVE Hypo.

During the mission to rescue Dr. Zere from Rais' compound if one were to go to the office-like area once inside one could find a desk where Rais recreated the 'pencil trick' scene from Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. Seems like he does have a sense of humor.

On the shore side of the Slums, there is a zombie infested motel named Bites Motel, a reference to the television series Bates Motel, which itself a reference to the movie Psycho and the character of Norman Bates. The player will be sent here during "The Prodigal Son" side quest to find Alexei's son, Kristov.

Early in the game, the player will have the chance to help a survivor Babar Kizil, who claims to be a werewolf, found at the train depot. Ignore him, and enter the hangar, and quickly turn to the nearby radio on the power box, and switch it on. The zombies in the room will perform a rather pleasant dance number to the music for a few minutes, then will attack the player.

In the Slums district, there is an abandoned little shore side village. One of the homes has boxes of fruit and cases of water, with a sign reading "Take what u want won't be needing these anymore". In the house, there is a dead man in a chair, who has shot himself in the head. His pistol is on the floor beside him. The weapon only has two rounds in it, but it is a way to obtain a firearm early in the game. More ammunition can be found in police vans and the gun could also be turned over to Dawud for his quest "Gunslinger" early on. The EXPcalibur can be found close to this. See below for the easter egg.

Out in the water bordering the Slums, towards the far southeastern part of the map, there is a small rock. On this rock is a decomposing corpse, who is gripping a large, medieval battle sword lodged in his chest.

The HUD of this weapon reads "This EXPcalibur belongs to me.". The player must hold the interact button for close to 3 minutes before they can pull the sword from the corpse, a reference to the story of King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone (in this case sword in the zombie). The corpse will ignite into a fireball, and after it burns away, there will be a blueprint to craft the EXPcalibur weapon. You can be killed by the flames however the blueprints will remain until picked up.

In the school there is a zombie that seems to have been cut in half by a saw blade. There are multiple references that could relate to this. One could be a reference to the 2007 film Aliens vs Predator: Requiem. In a scene set in the school the character of Jessie is running through the corridors, at the same moment Wolf the predator sent to clean up the xenomorph outbreak throws one of his giant shurikans along the hallway. Jessie is sliced in half against the wall by the shurikan as they collide at a T junction. in the movie Jessie is wearing a pale top and blue skirt. The other could be a reference to Half-Life, where you can pick up a saw blade with the gravity gun and fire it as a projectile.

In the beginning of the game once you wake after the opening cut-scene if one were to look around the room one would see a poster of Jade "The Scorpion" Aldemir with a QR code on the bottom right. Get Crane close enough to it and it works as a real-life code to the site -city.com.

If one was to do Dawud's side mission "Gunslinger" before making your way to Old Town, upon meeting with the survivors trying to also make their way there one would meet him and his son. His son is holding a toy version of Link's Master Sword from the Legend of Zelda franchise.

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