Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse

About Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse

In Stubbs the Zombie, the player plays as a zombie, and the primary goal is to kill humans and devour their brains. Eating brains gives back a certain amount of lost health to the player as well as converting those humans into zombies, causing them to fight alongside the player. The player has the option of beating an enemy to death with melee strikes or to transform them into zombies. Stubbs' zombie state prevents him from wielding any conventional weapons, and instead wields a variety of improvised weaponry and combat techniques, most of which are done using a specific body part as explosives or makeshift devices. Stubbs can drive a wide variety of vehicles, such as cars, tractors and tanks. All of the aforementioned improvised weapons, excluding Stubbs' hand, will convert enemies they kill into zombies. Stubbs can herd zombies which are in range by whistling. Since there is a limit to how many zombies will follow him at a time, Stubbs can guide the rest by sending whole groups of zombies in a direction with a single shove. Stubbs' zombie followers can kill humans and eat their brains, just like Stubbs can, and any human killed by one of his minions will also turn into a zombie. An enemy that fires upon a zombie in a group will attract the attention of all the rest of the zombies. Crowds of zombies can serve as a shield when approaching enemies armed with ranged weapons and are needed for sowing the necessary chaos and confusion into a difficult melee.

Different enemies have different abilities, health pools and weapons for dispatching Stubbs, civilians typically have no weapons or may have the occasional melee weapons, have low health, are quite cowardly and can be grabbed by the front regardless of their health, whereas other enemies need to be hit and dazed before Stubbs is able to eat their brains from the front, though he can eat their brains from behind if they are unaware of Stubbs or distracted by other zombies.

In 1959, Andrew Monday, multi-billionaire playboy industrialist, who was said to have been found in a picnic basket by his mother Maggie, has built the futuristic utopian city of Punchbowl, in Pennsylvania. During its opening ceremony, deceased traveling salesman, Edward "Stubbs" Stubblefield, rises from his grave as a Zombie and begins to consume the brains of Punchbowl's inhabitants, quickly creating his own army of the undead, and causing increasing amounts of havoc as the Zombies clash with the various militant factions of the area. Stubbs is searching for answers as to who killed him and why, though he seems to have an inordinate infatuation for Andrew Monday's mother, Maggie. Stubbs heads to The Punchbowl Police Station where he is captured and the police chief plans to dance on Stubbs' grave. Stubbs manages to escape by ripping his hand off and using it to control a scientist to release his restraints. Stubbs makes his way to the chief's office where they have a dance-off before the chief dances to the armory, unaware he has Stubbs' pancreas stuck to him; it explodes, killing him.

As Stubbs continues his path of destruction, he comes across Otis, the prospective, paranoid, trigger-happy leader of a local redneck militia called "The Quaker State Irregulars" who believes the Zombie outbreak is part of a Communist infiltration mission. Stubbs follows Otis back to his farm where he gives a rousing speech (consisting of only the word "Brains" in various cadences) to his fellow Zombies in a parody of the war film Patton. Upon cornering Otis, Stubbs seems to be at a disadvantage, as Otis has prepared a large stockpile of TNT which he intends to detonate. Before he can light it, Otis seems to recognize Stubbs from when he was alive and begins to panic. This gives Stubbs the chance to grab the match and light the TNT himself, escaping to a safe distance before the house is blown up, with Otis inside. He then rides a flustered sheep back to Punchbowl.

Stubbs goes to the dam where he relieves his bladder by urinating in the town's water supply, contaminating it. He then causes the dam to explode by having the other Zombies use themselves as electrical conduits. The flash flood of contaminated water worsens the zombie outbreak and brings Stubbs back into the city limits, where the U.S. Army has arrived to dispatch the zombies. Stubbs eventually reaches Herman Wye’s laboratory, where Wye himself reveals he unwittingly created Stubbs via an experimental growth serum that he used for accelerating the growth of grass in Punchbowl. He also declares his intent to use Stubbs as a specimen for his research. After a difficult battle, Stubbs manages to defeat Wye.