PopCap on Tuesday released Plants vs. Zombies, a humorous action-strategy game in the "tower defense" vein for Mac and PC. Players stop an army of marauding zombies from overwhelming their pristine front yards by purchasing and planting a wide range of flowers, vines, trees, and other flora with various types of zombie-fighting abilities.

Each of the more than four dozen kinds of plants affects the game's over two dozen types of zombies in various ways, requiring players to think ahead when placing their defenses. Obstacles and defenses in the game's higher levels, which number over 50 in each of the five available modes, include the setting of the sun, a swimming pool, and a creeping fog. Available modes are adventure, survival, puzzle, Zen garden, and mini-game.

Players track their progress and vital stats in a suburban almanac and can purchase special "power plants" and other anti-zombie tools at Crazy Dave's Trunk o' the Car Shop. Pricing is US$19.95 and system requirements call for Mac OS X version 10.4.11, 512MB RAM, and a 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor.