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Video Game / The Walking Dead (Arcade)

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The Walking Dead Arcade is a 2017 horror light gun arcade game by Play Mechanix and Raw Thrills, somewhat based on the AMC series of the same name.

In it you play as a group of survivors that have taken refuge in prison complex, but it soon becomes breached by Walkers and they must escape. Unlike most rail shooters, your primary weapon is a crossbow in reference to series icon Daryl Dixon, although the game does not feature any characters from the show.

The game was released January 2017. Here's a preview and here's a playthrough.


The Walking Dead Arcade has the following tropes:

  • And Now for Someone Completely Different: Every so often, the character POV will switch to one of two main characters, Jason and Kara. Though there's no difference between them.
  • Anyone Can Die: True to the show, the survivors start getting picked off one by one in the last chapter.
  • Asshole Victim: The jerkass who caused the Hollie's death to save his own skin and stole the battery ended up getting devoured by the walkers right after the Player Character reclaim the battery back from him. He is undeniably the only human who deserves such a gruesome fate.
  • Black Dude Dies First: Inverted as Kara, the only black member of the cast, dies last.
  • Boom, Headshot!: The game points out that headshots take down Walkers instantly so that's where you must aim.
  • Downer Ending: After going through all the trouble of getting the battery to power the escape bus. All of the survivors, including Jason's partners, die just as they try to climb on with him the only one managing to get away. And even then, a Walker manages to climb on the back of the bus as he's driving off with it ambiguous if he'll manages to spot it in time before it gets to him.
  • Dynamic Difficulty: In a similar way to other PlayMechanix games, the lifebar is dynamic. If you take too many hits in a short time, your health will not go down as quickly. If you haven't taken a hit in a while, the next hits (or survivor rescue fails) will remove much more health.
  • Elite Mook: Every so often, you run across a Walker in SWAT gear. When you do, your character is given a handheld weapon like a wrench or crowbar, and you have to bash at the helmet until you can expose their head to finish them off.
  • Hostage Spirit-Link: Hitting your partners or other survivors results in life drainage. This likewise applies if you fail to save a survivor from the Walkers.
  • Jerkass: The survivor you save in the third chapter. He kills Hollie to save his own skin, steals the one working battery for the bus you need to escape and constantly tries to keep you from getting to him via Molotov cocktails.
  • Pushed at the Monster: At one point, the protagonists spot a man hanging from a walkway over some Walkers. They rush to save him, but when Hollie tires to pull him up has trouble doing so, he instead pulls her over the ledge and into the crowd of Walkers, then drops down and runs while they're distracted feeding on her.
  • Real-Time Weapon Change: Through the course of the game you come across weapons and switch out occasionally.
  • Secondary Adaptation: The game bears an AMC logo, indicating that it's specifically based on the network's television adaptation of the comic book series The Walking Dead.
  • The Big Guy: Lewis fills this role for the survivors because of his big body.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: The aforementioned jerkass who whines for someone to help him when he gets grabbed climbing up a ladder. Hollie, whom you rescued earlier, rushes over to pull him up while you provide cover fire. How does he repay her? By pulling her off the catwalk into the crowd of walkers and running off as she's devoured by them. Kara even lampshaded this afterwards:
    Kara: He just killed her!
  • Zombie Apocalypse: Naturally given its source material.

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