Zombies are the most basic of all the "zombie" units. Having no special defensive equipment or travel abilities, these zombies are susceptible to any type of attack and are slow to approach the player's house. They are found in most levels and are the first zombies the player encounters.
At the official start of a level, a siren noise will appear and one (an anonymous voiceover) will say "The zombies... are coming...", subsequently followed by a moan as zombies enter the lawn. The Conehead Zombie, Buckethead Zombie, Screen Door Zombie, and Trash Can Zombie become this zombie when their armor is destroyed.
While they can't become typical Zombies, Flag Zombie and Ducky Tube Zombie are effectively this Zombie, Flag Zombie moving slightly faster while Ducky Tube Zombie is an aquatic variant with their own variants.
This zombie loves brains. Can't get enough. Brains, brains, brains, day in and night out. Old and stinky brains? Rotten brains? Brains clearly past their prime? Doesn't matter. Regular zombie wants 'em.
Commoner Zombie
Toughness: low
Does his common-or-garden appearance remind you of Zombie? Yes, he is Zombie's distant relative on the journey to the west. Their family are all loyal brain-lovers.
Overview
The zombie absorbs 270 damage; his appearance changes upon absorption of 90 damage when the left arm falls off and 181 damage when his head falls off
In a standard Adventure or Survival Mode level, Zombies will be the first to appear and will start the assault in approximately 20 seconds or the time it would take the player to plant three Sunflowers (or Sun-shrooms), as measured during a daytime (or nighttime) level. They can be killed by planting a Potato Mine three spaces away from the zombie, purchasing the Garden Rake from Crazy Dave's Twiddydinkies, or planting relatively cheap offensive plants like Peashooters or Cabbage-pults. For Night levels, you can use mushrooms, like Puff-shrooms and Scaredy-shrooms. One Puff-shroom, despite its short range, will be able to take a single zombie out on its own. However, repeated attacks may be able to kill the Puff-shroom. The Tangle Kelp provides an aquatic Potato Mine-style plant in Pool levels, except only one zombie can be killed per Tangle Kelp. For dealing with large volumes of zombies, more expensive additions such as the Torchwood and Melon-pult are available, in addition to instant kills such as the Jalapeno, Cherry Bomb and Doom-shroom. Some plants, such as the Repeater and the Fume-shroom, can be upgraded to increase efficiency and give them new abilities. Zombies can eat your plants and brains, where it is then the player loses the level and try or start that same level again if it does eat your brains (the same also applies to other types of zombies). Any offensive plant can kill one of them, except when planted right in front of them. Two Spikeweeds or a Spikerock will be enough to kill a regular zombie 90% of the time, but because of slight speed variations, the player may need three Spikeweeds or a Spikerock and Spikeweed to kill them.
I, Zombie
Due to its low health, Zombie should only be placed in lanes where there are no offensive plants, or as a backup to other zombies. However, if there is only a Peashooter in the closest lane or only a Spikeweed, then the zombie will still be able to make it past. It can also be used to set off a Potato Mine or to get eaten by a Chomper to deal with them as cheaply as possible.
At the start of the level, the player can hear a voice mutter, "The zombies...are coming...", and growl. This could mean that the zombies still remember a small part of human speech. However, it is unknown if the zombies themselves are saying this or simply an anonymous narrator, leaving this debatable.
Zombie is the first zombie the player encounters.
Zombie is the only zombie to be used as a weapon for the Gargantuar.
If any zombie that can degrade to this zombie is killed by an explosive after losing its arm but before losing its head, its lost arm will regrow before it falls into a pile of ashes. The only exception to this is the Ducky Tube Zombies in the pool, which will just disappear instead.
However, if a Ducky Tube Zombie is blown up before he enters the pool, he will turn into ashes like a normal zombie.
Most zombies can absorb a few extra damage shots after being decapitated.
Occasionally, when a zombie dies and his head falls off, he will start to stumble back and forth, shaking a fist in the air, then fall over. The same also happens to a Ducky Tube Zombie if he is slain before entering the pool.
This death animation also plays if he dies to a Wall-nut, however, this is extremely rare to happen.
A Zombie Mask is available in the Xbox Live Marketplace for 160 Microsoft Points.
Zombie shoes are available in the Xbox Live Marketplace for 160 Microsoft Points, which are the plain brown shoes that the normal zombie wears.
A Zombie T-shirt is available in the Xbox Live Marketplace for 80 Microsoft Points. It is white and has a normal zombie head on it.
Its Pool alternative
The zombie has two idle animations, he may tilt left to right or move his head up and down. They also sometimes stick their tongues out, making a total of four idle animations.
In the online version, when a zombie loses its head and is then hit by an explosive, it regrows its head before burning. However, when a zombie in any other version is burnt without its head, it will fall off unburnt while the body will turn black and disappear after a couple of seconds. in its animation in all version. for a split second the head will turn white with an outline of ash.
There is a glitch in the Nintendo DS version where any zombie that can degrade to this zombie (not including Ducky Tube Zombies) will continue to walk after losing its head until it takes a certain amount of damage before falling over. The number of hits varies, depending on what they degrade into.
If a zombie's tongue is out, it'll disappear when they are eating plants and re-appear if they aren't, as they and their variants share the same eating animation.
On the Console and PS Vita versions of Plants vs. Zombies, a zombie may die with a bloated mouth, his eyes staring at the sky, and not losing his head, upon attempting to eat a Wall-nut or Tall-nut, inferably due to their allergy of walnuts. However, this is extremely rare.
In December, on iOS and Android versions, this zombie sometimes wears a Santa hat, but only if Festive Mode is turned on.
If a hypnotized zombie has lost its arm, it loses its right arm instead of its left arm due to the appearance of a hypnotized zombie being a reflection of its normal state.
There is a glitch in the Nintendo DS version where if a zombie is killed with the Garden Rake, its left arm will disappear without falling off. In all other versions, however, its arm will be retained.
If a zombie is eating a defensive plant, such as Wall-nut, Tall-nut, or Pumpkin, the biting noise will be quieter than if it was eating any other plant.
A zombie has a rare chance to move slightly faster than normal.
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