Oh man, coming down from an awesome game on my TWD pro!!

212+mil (which is miraculous for me, since I suck at playing ) at the end. Started all multi kills; 28 mil SJP twice in Prison MB; stacked Bloodbath MB with Wellverine MB and went nuts; triple stacked the crossbow cash in; and started Siege and blew the doors off the prison/tower before I drained out.

TWD was far from love at first play for me. Played it on site at Hi-life here in Oakland and thought it played WAYYYYY too brutal, but I could see potential with how everything was layed out. So that, combined with the fact that I take too many risks, I sold my STprem and got a TWD pro, since I figured in a home environment it would be a better experience. Thank god I took that gamble, because it's turned out good so far.

Most of my concerns for this game have pretty much been addressed and worked out.

-Too many shots lead to the pops: I'm fine with this since there's a nice valueable pops JP, as well as on a pro the pops are a great way to get switch hits for the Wellverine MB. They're also the only time I get to have a "breather" since there's no scoop to slow the game down.

-Theme integration: I was really tripping about the fact that I Didn't think the game would bring me into the theme very well, what with the comic hillbilly callouts and the fact that other than the cab artwork it has a very "generic zombie game" feel to it. But after spending time and getting to understand the rules and the code, it is really drawing me in to the theme with how it plays. Without any scoop or many ways to stop ball travel aside from traps on the fly, the game feels very frantic, which makes sense with the theme, I feel like I'm fighting to survive and keep the ball in play and trap it effectively. And Lyman has put a LOT of split/quick decisions in the code for the player to make, adding to the panic and hyper-vigilant multitasking. If you accidentally activate the shot multiplier from the lane, which shot is the most bang for the buck at that moment? Do you risk it to stack First Aid completions for permanent score boosts, or Weapons completions to stack Crossbow mode, or just go for Bloodbath and get a multikill mode and add-a-ball? So many ways to approach this game dependent union your current multipliers/multikill/prison/Drop bank/Wellverine status. Reminds me of a lot of the decisions in ACDC. All this really makes me feel like I'm trying to survive while making some tough split second decisions.

-SDTM drains from pops exit: doesn't really happen to me often. Maybe once every 20 balls....but that's gravity for you...this is supposed to be an on-site money making machine, lol. Doesn't happen enough to bother me at all. Although, I will say that while playing it on location, it was happening WAY more than it is in my home....maybe it's a leveling thing?

-SDTM drains from prison mag: okay, this one happens a little more often and is pretty sucky....hopefully code will add an extra jolt to either side right before letting go, so I can at least have a chance of nudging it.

-Crappy call-outs: call outs are pretty dumb, BUT the gameplay is so frantic that I usually don't even notice them anymore....I pay more attention to the awesome music/sound effects/dots package and rarely get taken out of the experience anymore by the hillbilly callouts.

Overall, big thumbs up from me. Now understandably this game isn't for everyone, and I don't expect it to be....especially given my less than stellar first impression of the game, I can see how it can not be someone's cup of tea. But it works for me, it scratches that itch for me that I'm missing in my current lineup.

Of course, always the caveat of "check back with me in a year", since I'm still in the honeymoon phase of both the game and the new code, but I have a feeling this one will keep me engaged for a while