Zen Pinball 2: The Walking Dead (Wii U) Review

The concept of pinball should need little explanation, as it is always somewhat the same at its root. The player has to launch a metallic ball across a sloped play field and keep the ball from falling through the hole at the bottom using flippers, keeping the ball in motion at all times and sending it flying against targets, bumpers and along ramps to score as many points as possible, looking for ways and combinations to score more than other players. The Walking Dead Pinball is more of the same, only in an environment - or rather, pinball table - inspired by Telltale Games' own line of adventure games inspired by the famous comic.

Per traditional modern pinball formula, there are missions to take on, which are selected by repeatedly hitting a walker coming out of a drain, making him go away and opening the way to a ramp, which triggers a mission selection system. All five missions available are based on the five episodes of The Walking Dead: Season One and titled accordingly, followed by certain choices of which path the player wants to take as far as the story goes, which does a great job of instilling the feeling of actually playing the original adventure game and not a pinball machine.

Of course, a pinball machine, or even a virtual one at that, can't do much in the way of telling a story like an adventure game could, and the main attraction here remains the pinball action and the true test of skills. It's still nonetheless appreciable that the visual, audio and game design all work together to immerse the player into the universe on which the table is based. It is rich with highly detailed environments all around the table, which are made to resemble a town overrun by walkers, from the church bell tower to a train locomotive, and an old barn at which walkers come banging at the door upon losing a ball.

The missions in themselves are not the easiest seen in a Zen Pinball table, and not the most immediately comprehensive, either. Better and more self-explanatory mission objectives and mechanics have been witnessed in the past, and it's hard to say whether this can be faulted on Zen Studios themselves, or if simply certain source material stories (such as Star Wars) are simply better suited to turn into pinball action than others (in this case, The Walking Dead: Season One). However, past a short time of adaptation and a just slightly steeper learning curve, everything becomes clear down the line, and that's when the player can start scoring lots of points and breaking records, which is always where the fun is at.

Graphically and audibly, the game does strike a decidedly different vibe from any of Zen's previous efforts, which is a nice surprise. The moody atmosphere of the table, where night can fall all of sudden, just as witnessed previously in Marvel Pinball's "Blade" table, is this time around coupled to absolutely creepy music, and all of this is supported by credible zombie moans and screams, as well as convincing, if just maybe a bit cheesy given the pinball context, voice acting from the same cast that provided the voices for the original adventure game.

Of course, being a Zen Pinball table, it wouldn't be complete without its crazy non-pinball-esque sequences, like the shoot 'em up sections, or lightsaber training sessions of Star Wars Pinball. The Walking Dead Pinball is no exception, as the player gets to shoot down zombies in a sniping mini-game triggered during certain missions. The overall style of the game is not all about creepiness, like its exterior may seem to hint at, as certain modes are certainly goofy, like the "Make them Smile" sequence, where the player has to aim for certain ramps to make Clementine and Lee make passes as they play football. The Walking Dead Pinball, just like the rest of Zen's adaptations of other franchises in pinball form, scrutinises its source material to always deliver both serious and fun objectives to its players, making the experience a very complete one indeed.