The seventh annual International Mobile Gaming Awards were just announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, and game developer PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies walked away with the award for Best Casual Game of 2010. It was released as a PC game in 2009, but its commercial success was sealed in the first week of its release to the iPhone App Store in February, 2010, when it logged 300,000 downloads in the first nine days of release in this format. However, who knew this little tower defense strategy game featuring plants and zombies could be such an artistic success as well? Raphael Goumot, Mobile Games Director at Orange, said: "As part of the jury, I saw the hundreds of entries from all over the world. The standard was incredibly high and it is hugely reassuring to know that mobile gaming, which is such an important part of the mobile industry, is in such a healthy and robust state."

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of planting a garden to ward off oncoming monsters, Plants vs. Zombies features a mob of fun-loving zombies that is about to invade your home. Your only defense is an arsenal of home-guarding, zombie-zapping plants, such as peashooters, wall-nuts and cherry bombs, which "mulcify" the zombies before they come knocking on your door. The game is currently available in six platforms: Xbox, iPhone, DS, Mac, PC and iPad. In its 9.5 out of 10 rating, IGN said: "It's a very simple concept and, in fact, when you first play Plants vs. Zombies you may find it to be too laid back; too easy. But the real draw here is the incredible variety of plants (towers) and zombies. There are 48 kinds of plants with numerous offensive, defensive, and production capabilities, and 26 different zombies. Completing each level in the game will unlock a new plant or item to add to your arsenal. These constant rewards really keep you involved and will have you saying 'just one more level' long after you initially thought there wasn't much to the game."

George Fan, who created the game, said in an interview with GameZebo, "I'm not into games that are too gritty or that take themselves too seriously, nor am I into themes that are too pandering or sickeningly sweet. So when I set out to create Plants vs. Zombies, I made sure it struck the right balance for me thematically. Yes, you have these cutesy plants, but the existence of zombies prevents it from being too sugary. Yes, it's a PopCap game with zombies, but they're goofy, cartoony zombies so it's all good." Fan added, "More than that, however, I think it's the gameplay that really strikes a balance between the casual and the hardcore." Since Fan is a, well, fan of strategy games, he wanted to create a game that offered elements of strategy for the hardcore gamer; at the same time, he personally hates the read through tutorials just to learn how to play a game, so he also wanted to make sure this game was simple and easy to play, which is why it appeals to the casual gamer. Fan admits to being inspired by Warcraft III Tower Defense (for its stationary turrets gunning down enemies), Insaniquarium (for its resource system of selecting plants) and Tapper (for its gameplay).

The game offers inspired creativity and even some daring lunacy. Look at the way the plants interact with each other or the human emotions that the non-human vegetation conjure. There's a pole-vaulting zombie and there was even a zombie created in the image of Michael Jackson during his Thriller phase. This special dancing enemy zombie appeared during night level play and would launch into a dance that would then summon hordes of extra zombies. The game featuring this zombie was released two months before Jackson died but has since been removed at the request of the Jackson Estate, which felt the zombie in question was too close a match to Michael. As PopCap explained, "After receiving this objection, PopCap made a business decision to retire the original 'dancing zombie' and replace it with a different 'dancing zombie' character for future builds of Plants vs. Zombies on all platforms." In addition, as an homage to some of Fan's influences and to the company that gave his game life, two of the mini-games (Zombiquarium and Beghouled) are named for PopCap's popular games Insaniquarium and Bejeweled.

The game is fun to play, easy to learn yet requires strategy; it's well-designed; it wins awards; and it's cheeky in its humor. It's got all the ingredients for popularity, which has reigned down on this game since its creation. Plus, if you don't play it, you just might find zombies knocking on your door.

So, readers, do you play Plants vs Zombies? What do you like about it? Post your thoughts (and they better be good or zombies might come after you!).