Air Raid (DS mini-game)

Air Raid is the 22th or final Mini-game in Plants vs. Zombies. The mini-game is exclusive to the DS version. You must fight Dr. Zomboss with a Gatling Pea in a Flower Pot plane. To move your Gatling Pea, slide it with your stylus. The Gatling Pea automaticially fires as long as the stylus is on it. To beat the Mini-game, just destroy the Zombot (Dr. Zomboss' Robot).

Strategy
Dr. Zomboss throws various items at the Gatling Pea, including wrenches, ice balls, lasers, and zombie heads. Move the Gatling Pea out of the way and destroy the projectiles. Do also note that you will also take damage when you come into direct contact with the Zombot! Ice balls will bounce around, and will sometimes include plants inside of them such as Threepeaters that allow you to fire in three directions (at the rate of a Gatling Pea), Pumpkins which are shields absorbing two hits, and Jalapenos which destroy Dr. Zomboss's projectiles and deal damage. These plants disappear quickly (Estimated to be less than 10 seconds), so be sure to grab them ASAP after the Ice Ball is destroyed! Ice balls take five hits to destroy, and bounce all over the screen until destroyed. They should be gotten rid of immediately as their size give you much more limited space to dodge incoming obstacles in tight corners! When the Zombot's eyes glow blue, it is about to use ice balls. It is also noted that sometimes Ice Balls apparently come out of the right hand side of the screen without any warning, so take extra note!

When the Zombot's eyes glow red, it will begin following you on-screen, and then fire a laser (or, later, an exploding pile of zombie headwear). Slide your Gatling Pea to the bottom of the screen. Then when the blue "beam ball" is about to form, quickly slide to the top of the screen! It takes time to master the timing, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be fine. Then while Dr Zomboss wastes his time firing the beam, you can cautiously approach near the beam to fire a coupe of peas at him.

Later on in the level, Dr. Zomboss also throws "Electrifying" wrenches which are red in color. They are homing, and will follow you; but once past you, they run off-screen and never come back. Thankfully, Dr. Zomboss throws only one at a time. However, with Ice Balls around, the situation can get pretty hectic! At some point in time, Dr. Zomboss sends out some zombie heads that will take an ovallish orbital path at the left hand side of the screen, making movement difficult. An easy way to counter this orbiting zombie heads is to pit yourself against the very left hand corner of the screen (Your stylus should be touching the left border of the touch screen) and shoot them down.

Sometimes, the Zombot will go offscreen and attack, thus, you need to watch the Zombot on the top screen to know what attack Dr. Zomboss will use. Note that when he fires the beam, you just need to note the position of the beam fired for the first time since he's obviously too stupid to move his Zombot around. This would mean that subsequent beams would fire the very same portion of the screen, leaving you time to slack at the other uncovered areas of the screen.

The Flower Pot plane takes approximately twelve hits before exploding, and that isn't a lot of leeway, so be careful out there! Appearance changes at six and nine hits.

Scoring
The following items are worth points:

Wrench / Zombie head destroyed: 50 points Zombot takes one pea of damage: 20 points "Electrified" wrench destroyed: 100 points Ice Ball destroyed: 300 points Power-up freed: 10000 points Jalapeno flame hitting the Zombot: 10000 points Dr. Zomboss defeated: 30000 points

Trivia

 * When the plane explodes, the "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" voice clip from losing a level is played.
 * The explosion of the Flower Pot plane is similar to a Cherry Bomb explosion.
 * This mini-game is the only game mode that doesn't feature a progress bar on the top screen. Instead, the mini progress bar representing the Zombot's health is located at bottom right hand corner of the touch screen. The bottom left hand corner's bar represents your Flower Pot Plane's health.