Preview By: Siou Choy
Developer:	Sega
Publisher:	THQ
Genre:	Pinball
Est. Release:	6-30-02
Posted:	6-12-02

Look to your graveyards, your churchyards, your dead: the zombies are rising once again. The Pinball of the Dead is coming, a production of Sega’s in house development company WOW Entertainment for the Game Boy Advance. For shambling, rotting simulacrums of life, these flesh eaters have sure made their way around - appearing first in the House of the Dead series, then in Typing of the Dead, both of which are available for the late, lamented Sega Dreamcast. And just when you thought things couldn’t get weirder than blowing chunks from dead flesh by means of typing skills, those fun loving dead are popping up in the unlikeliest of places: your local pinball machine.

Well, OK, not literally. The Pinball of the Dead is a video game, but taking place on three huge pinball tables: Wondering, Movement, and Cemetery. Each pinball table will be unique, with several extras to unlock (which of course, is done by racking up a hell of a lot of points). Once enough points are earned, you earn the dubious distinction of facing the boss of each level. The bosses found in PotD will be essentially the same as found in the HotD and TotD series, with a total of six bosses to be found in the game.

Essentially, the gimmick is this: instead of bullets or great typing skills (Mavis Bacon has nothing on TotD), this time around, you nail the moldering atavistic forces of the past by shooting a big-assed silver pinball at them. If you lose your ball during the battle, it's back onto the main board. Now mind you, it’s not really possible to "lose" the ball per se, but you will have to re-open the gate to gain access to that boss again.

The controls are pretty basic: the L and R buttons (or the left directional and the A button, if you prefer – your choice) take the place of flippers, so you can toss the balls at those annoying zombies. Launching the ball (at least in the former scenario) is done by means of the A button.

Pinball fans who have suffered through the decline and fall of the pinball machine as arcade standby will have something to look forward to when Pinball of the Dead is released later this June.