Telltale’s seminal The Walking Dead Season One seemed like a strange thing to turn into a pinball game, but if you think about it, the zombie-filled video game series has a lot in common with pinball. You get into it knowing that it’s ultimately futile. There’s no real hope for a happy ending- no matter how good you are, no matter what choices you will make, you’ll fumble the ball at some point. It’s just human nature.
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You’ll play and try to keep things going to stay alive but really, you’re really just delaying the inevitable. The ball always drops. It’s a metaphor for real life when you really think about it... it all ends the same way so why bother?
...anyway, with those wonderfully uplifting thoughts out of the way, you can see how a pinball game can actually adapt the depressing saga of Lee and Clem quite well. Trying to port the decisions and story-driven nature of the series may be another matter (more on that later) but this is more faithful to feel of the series than you’d ever expect.
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It’s mostly due to some brilliant table design. The playfield is short and claustrophobic, which means that the ball is constantly flinging back your way and forcing you to make split-second decisions. Every sound effect and music cue, every piece of art, every goal is taken from the five episodes that comprise the first season, so this plays pretty heavily to those who like to reminisce. There’s even some new voice work from the original actors behind the game, as an added bonus. (This of course won’t mean anything to anyone who hasn’t played the game, but if you haven’t, what’s the hold up? It's only one of the finest games of the last few years.)
The big feature for the table is a zombie target that you can hit a few times to open up a hole that will recreate the events of all five episodes of the first season. Each one will burden you with a decision, much like in the original game. You’ll have to decide whether to help people or leave them behind, steal supplies or walk on by- many of the same decisions you already worried over are recreated here. The consequences have not. No matter which choice you pick the next event to take place is the same. The events are typical for pinball, making you aim for specific lanes or spinners, or even take place in a little shooting gallery, using the triggers to aim your gun’s crosshairs.
There are even moments that try to give you a moment of sanity, such as when you spell out S-M-I-L-E and your pinball gets turned into a soccer ball that you have to kick around with Clem and Duck to help the kids forget their horrible predicament and doomed future.
Complete all five episodes and will you finally save Clem? Well- you'll have to be a better pinball wizard than I to find out.
Fortunately there's a ton of fun stuff to keep you playing. There will be moments where you'll have to scavenge for food or ammo, or evade walkers, or even take out a shambling horde on the playfield.
Zen Studios has had a ton of experience adapting other properties into pinball games and it gets the theme of it down pat. But as for whether a pinball game can make you feel have the same emotional connection to the characters that Telltale’s adventure game did?
No, of course it can’t. It's pinball. It's all about getting into the groove, learning the table, making the flipper extensions of yourself and perhaps finally experiencing that wonderful moment where everything just clicks and you become one with the table, watching the lights flash and the spinners twirl and knowing- just knowing exactly where the ball is going to be before it even gets there... until you inevitably make a mistake or don't nudge the table enough or just watch the ball drop straight down that middle stretch of emptiness, powerless, and then the zombies have you.
Just remember- no matter how bleak things may seem, there’s always hope (for a high score).
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The Walking Dead Pinball was reviewed from a promo copy provided by the publisher for PS4, PS3, and Vita. It works identically on both, and is also available on all of Zen's gaming platforms across all its other Zen Pinball platforms (Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U, Steam, Mac, Google Play, Amazon), as well as a standalone iOS app, for $2.99.
