The Arcade Zombie borrows the same body model, idle, moving, eating, and dying animation from Octo Zombie, Troglobite, and Jurassic Bully respectively. Its get up consists of a very messy hairstyle colored in red. In addition, it wears eyeglasses with a twist-tie. Its shirt consists of a colorful design with light blue as the primary color of the attire only to be paired up with yellow and pink designs respectively. The sleeves and bottom of the shirt are ragged. The linings on the neck and edge portion of the sleeves are all colored in dark blue, matching the gloves and jumper shorts that he wears except the suspenders of the jumper shorts are colored in magenta. It also wears a yellow belt with a green pouch. Finally, its footwear consists of white rubber shoes with blue designs and green socks.
Almanac entry
TOUGHNESS: Dense
SPEED: Basic
Pushes an arcade cabinet that spits out 8-Bit Zombies.
When it's a choice between quarters for games and quarters for laundry, Arcade Zombie is prepared to make the ultimate stinky sacrifice.
By themselves, Arcade Zombies are not hard to deal with, since they lack the power to cause any serious damage but the real problem comes from the arcade machine as it is able to spawn 8-Bit Zombies in endless quantities, which pose a great threat of overwhelming your defenses. It is important to note that you should try to destroy its arcade machine as quickly as possible.
Tips
Try to prevent it from pushing its arcade machine close to your house by using slowing plants like Stallia and pushing plants like Chard Guard. You can also try using area-of-effect plants to kill it quickly so that the arcade machine will not be pushed further into your lawn.
Arcade Zombie will not push arcade machines onto Lava Guava's lava pool or Sap-fling's sap puddle, allowing the player to prevent it from pushing its cabinet too far into the lawn. This no longer works in the 4.1.1 update, and the lava will not harm the arcade machine.
Instant-use plants such as Cherry Bomb will quickly help get rid of arcade machines and 8-Bit Zombies and while should not be relied on, are very effective in a pinch.
Using Thyme Warp is extremely effective, as it will separate the arcade machine from the Arcade Zombie as well as send all zombies to the rightmost column, leaving all arcade machines unattended and exposed. Furthermore, if you use it when the arcade machines are at the very edge of the lawn, the zombie will be warped to the first column, preventing the pushing of his machines.
Try to destroy arcade machines quickly; otherwise, you may end up with more 8-Bit Zombies than what you can deal with.
Using Garlic directly on the Arcade Zombie will separate it from the machine, preventing it from pushing the machine so it can be vulnerable to attack.
Similar to Imp Porter, it can summon the basic trio, the Basic, Conehead, and Buckethead Zombies.
It has a 1980's video-game geek-like appearance, with the hair and general attire.
It has tape at the middle of its glasses like Computer Scientist, this is a common stereotype for nerds.
While the player must still rid the lawn of all 8-Bit Zombies, the player does not have to destroy all of the arcade machines at the end of the level, even when the 8-bit jam is playing.
It does not actually react to its jam, instead its arcade machine is the one that reacts to the jam.
A glitch may occur when two Arcade Zombies start pushing the same arcade machine. When two Arcade Zombies push the same machine, one of them will freeze in its animation and will remain so for the remainder of the level. Meanwhile, the other Arcade Zombie continues to push the arcade machine normally.
Another glitch may occur when an Arcade Zombie appears without an arcade machine. When the Arcade Zombie then starts pushing, the arcade machine will spawn literally out of thin air in the wrong position in the same row where the glitched Arcade Zombie is, without producing any 8-Bit Zombies even if the right jam is played. This glitch tends to happen quite often in Neon Mixtape Tour - Day 32 during the fourth phase of the level.
There is another glitch where the Arcade Zombie will stop moving entirely. If the Arcade Machine is destroyed just when the Arcade Zombie is about to push it, it will freeze and continue to play its idle animation for the rest of the level or until it is killed.
The arcade machines in Neon Mixtape Tour's lawn alluded it being encountered.
Sometimes, when timed right, its arcade machine may still spawn an 8-Bit Zombie right after being destroyed.
The arcade machine can also occasionally still be pushed and crush plants after being destroyed.
With the 4.1.1 version, it (along with Troglobite and Octo Zombie) now has a unique burnt and zapped animation.
For some reason, it can't summon 8-Bit Zombies in Modern Day - Day 17. This is most likely a glitch in the code.
In the Chinese version, it is possible to plant freely on its machine.