Standard Zombie

The Standard Zombie is the most common Zombie form seen in the Half-Life series. It is the manifestation of a standard Headcrab attaching to a victim's cranium and taking over their nervous system.

Overview


Once a Headcrab successfully attaches to a host, the Headcrab's alien physiology causes various "mutations" to manifest in its host, such as increased strength and a sharp-toothed "mouth" that bisects the victim's chest cavity from neck to groin. The claws of the zombie might be the whole hand but without skin and tendons and only the bones remain. However, in Half-Life the zombies had full function of their "elongated claws", which could have been a mutation. In Half-Life 2, the chest "maw" instead appears to be a ripped open chest cavity with no sternum. Removal of the Headcrab reveals that the host's head is strangely untouched with its head bent back and mottled, bloody hair and bloody face set in a scream. In Half-Life 2, horrified sounds emanating from zombies imply that, while severely injured, the host is at least partially aware of its horrific situation.

Occasionally, Headcrab zombies may survive losing both legs and their lower torso, and continue to crawl along using their arms. In most cases, a Headcrab remains attached to its host until the zombie is destroyed, although in Half-Life 2, they will occasionally detach from the host if it is rendered immobile by its injuries.

Trivia

 * Playing parts of a victim's sound file backwards produces extremely disturbing yells of pain. The reversed cries have been interpreted as "God help me" and "get it off me". If set on fire, the victims may say things that might be interpreted as "Why, why, why!?", "Help God help, help me!", "Gaaah!", "Gaaaah, I'm on fire! Gaaaaah!", "My life's fading!" and "My eyes sting! Gaaah!", "Put it out!". Similarly, raising the pitch of the sound file produces a normal sounding voice effect.
 * It is a popular fact that in Half-Life 2, the standard zombies seem to be screaming "Yabba, my icing!" This is apparently an inadvertent effect of changing the original recorded sounds.
 * In Half-Life, zombies are seen "feeding" from dead scientists and soldiers by taking flesh from corpses and stuffing it into their chest "mouth." However, this is not seen in Half-Life 2. This behavior might have been scrapped or simply overlooked and not programmed. Another theory is that they put the "food" directly into their stomach.
 * In the non-HD variant of Half-Life and its expansions, a zombie's Headcrab appears to be "fastened" tighter to the victim's face, revealing the eerie outline of a human skull.
 * Two Standard Zombie growls can be heard in the film Drag Me to Hell, at 2:15. The Half-Life series uses many stock sounds heard in many other video games and films.

List of appearances

 * Half-Life: Day One
 * Half-Life
 * Half-Life: Uplink
 * Half-Life: Opposing Force
 * Half-Life: Blue Shift
 * Half-Life: Decay
 * Half-Life 2
 * Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
 * Half-Life 2: Episode One
 * Half-Life 2: Episode Two