Ah, pinball. The flashing lights, crazy sound effects, and high-speed action. Such a simple game, yet suffused with that wonderful nostalgic feeling of the joy of being in an old arcade. Now I want you to think about The Walking Dead, perhaps the greatest modern literary and cultural exercise in despairing, nihilistic fatalism. Has the mood whiplash broken your neck and rendered you unable to read this? If not, stick around: I'll tell you all about Zen Studios' take on the first season of Telltale's masterpiece side-story.

Zen Pinball 2: The Walking Dead Pinball delivers everything that the title suggests that it does. What we have as a result is a pinball table that looks like it was built exclusively from the assets used by Telltale in crafting the bleak, cel-shaded world of the video game. All the oppressive, neutral colors are in full force, regardless of where you go. Much like in the case of Lee Everett and his young charge Clementine, there's no way to escape it, except through death -- I mean, balling out.

Each of the first season's episodes had at least one big iconic set. Clementine's house. The streets of Macon. The St. John dairy farm. The Travelier Motel. The Savannah-bound train. Maccabe Imports. All of that and more makes an appearance. They really went all the way to establish their dedication to the source material. Hell, even the ball launch is an axe.

Special targets and missions hearken back to several key moments from the first season of Telltale's The Walking Dead. While I'm giving this table a recommendation (as I do with nearly everything Zen Studios puts out), I would advise against getting too deep into this table before playing completely through its inspiration -- to the bitter end. The Walking Dead is 95% storytelling, and it would be difficult to deliver a decent adaptation (as bizarre as pinball or not) without bringing some of that dark magic into play.

Zen Pinball 2: The Walking Dead Pinball is $3. Chances are, you spent much more on food today than you would from buying this table. Naturally, the value can only be derived from how much you enjoy playing pinball. The tactile pleasures of an actual machine are, of course, absent, but everything else is here, including that wonderful sense of fantasy that Zen always brings to their pinball tables. It's a quality product the whole way through.