Aw snap, someone get the holy water. Open Source Zombies!

Grab whatever you can - pitchfork, chainsaw, hatchet, or a shotgun for those of you who can't be bothered to "finesse" a zombie into submission. Your goal in this addictive little game is to save as many of the humans as you can from a horrible fate no doubt involving their brains being eaten.

It's set up kind of like a chessboard, with humans and zombies randomly placed. Set your difficulty and gore level, and go to it. Use the right and left arrows to turn your character around, then walk them with up and down (preferably over a weapon). Next to a zombie? Turn to face it, move towards it, and you automatically attack - you may miss, of course, so make it count. Grab a shotgun if you can, they've got phenomenal stopping power (read: one blast and you've got yourself a heaping pile of zombie slaw).

The graphics aren't great, but who cares? Zombies is ridiculously fun, only 7MB to download, doesn't require an install, and runs on Windows and Mac. Everybody wins! Linux users can play too, you've just got to compile the included RealBasic source code yourself.

What do Linux gaming, jumbo shrimp, and government intelligence have in common with each other? Think back to your English classes. (We're not responsible for any traumatic memories that surface from this exercise.) Got it yet? Anyone?

Oxymorons. No, no, wait, we're not insulting you. Those little phrases are all oxymorons. If the memories of your English classes were too painful to bear, the quick and dirty explanation of an oxymoron is two words placed together to describe something that seemingly contradict each other.

We're reasonably sure you see the oxymoron in jumbo shrimp, and government intelligence. Linux gaming? Well, we guess it all depends on how you define Linux... and gaming.

As we covered earlier this week, game researcher DRX is set to release his collection of rare SEGA prototypes this afternoon. Our last article got a lot of people's attention, and it caused some big problems for the Sonic Retro servers, so rather than linking you to relavent forum topic, we've posted a mirror of the proto FAQ after the jump, as prepared by forum member Skaarg.

For good measure, you can also watch this video DRX just released of "Sonic 3 C" Also, don't forget to come back this evening. We'll be live-blogging the release event!

DRX, a member of the Sonic Retro Forums, has done something unprecedented in the gaming community. After years of research and detective work, he has gotten his hands on a treasure trove of materials from the golden age of SEGA, including hundreds of prototypes, documentation, and possibly other things as well.

It's not currently known how much of the material he plans to make public, but he has confirmed that he is going to release the Sonic the Hedgehog prototypes this coming Saturday, the 23rd. A large community of Sonic fans have been searching for prototypes and lost levels in the games for many years now, and to document their accomplishments so far would be beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that there are a lot of people looking forward to this release.

The Playstation Portable is a jack of all trades. It plays music, videos, browses the Internet, and plays games. However, for an increasing number of people, this still isn't enough. With its powerful dual-processor configuration and Memory Stick Pro Duo slot, the PSP is a pocket powerhouse, capable of much more than just gaming and multimedia.

This is where the homebrew community comes in. With some modifications to its system software, the PSP can run 3rd party software, just like an ordinary computer. A massive community has sprung up online that is dedicated to these modifications. Read on to find out more.

There's talk all over the web of the U.K. getting iTunes Movies and T.V. shows "by the end of the month" - something us Brits are long overdue. Here at Download Squad we decided to see whether it truly is a matter of "flipping the switches" on this rumoured store, and dug into the iTunes localisation strings. Whilst we admittedly couldn't find any strings directly related to the implementation of a U.K. iTunes Video store, two strings certainly caught our eyes:

/* ===== iPhone Game Item Strings ===== */
"4329.001" = "Are you sure you want to remove the selected game from your iPhone?";
"4329.002" = "Are you sure you want to remove the selected games from your iPhone?";

Given that there are currently no games shipping with the iPhone to remove, and certainly none available on the iTunes Store to add, that hit us like a bombshell: Apple seems to be readying games for the iPhone. Whilst purely speculation at the moment, if it proves to be anything more than simply pre-emptive software strings, you'll hear about it here on Download Squad.

Still pondering whether or not to get Windows Vista on Tuesday? I'll give you 10 reasons why you shouldn't from APC Magazine. Expensive! Lousy drivers! UAC! DRM! Case closed! Er, not quite. Here's 10 reasons why you should... also from APC Magazine. Multimedia! Better drivers! Search! Undelete! DirectX 10! Case closed! Uhhh... I'm not making this any easier for you, am I?

While you ponder that imponderable, I'm going to move on. It seems that government officials in South Korea--one of the most wired nations on Earth--are recommending that the citizenry not upgrade to Vista. Why? Because, apparently, South Korea is mad for ActiveX, the proprietary browser plug-in technology that powers much of the country's web services, from online banking to stock trading, shopping, and gaming, and apparently many of those services cease to work in Windows Vista (presumably because of UAC). More than a reason not to upgrade to Vista, this seems like a fantastic demonstration of how stupid it is to build web services on proprietary technologies. The irony, of course, is that ActiveX is Microsoft's own proprietary invention.

In gaming news, FPS luminary John Carmack--you know, the Doom and Quake guy--says he's not exactly chomping at the bit after Vista or DirectX 10 just yet. "Personally, I wouldn't jump at something like DX10 right now," he says. "I would let things settle out a little bit and wait until there's a really strong need for it." For now he's quite satisfied with Windows XP and accuses Microsoft of "artificially" forcing gamers to upgrade with DX10. "Nothing is going to help a new game by going to a new operating system. There were some clear wins going from Windows 95 to Windows XP for games, but there really aren't any for Vista. They're artificially doing that by tying DX10 so close it, which is really nothing about the OS ... They're really grasping at straws for reasons to upgrade the operating system. I suspect I could run XP for a great many more years without having a problem with it." He calls DirectX 9 "quite good" and also praises the Xbox 360's graphics API.

Phew. To catch up on the previous four days of our Vista Countdown, hit the archive.

Want to lose weight by playing video games? Not coordinated enough to play DDR? Tim Tucker has the solution for you: Tetris Weightlifting. It's a version of Tetris that you control with a pair of handles each attached to a set of weights. You pull the right handle to move the piece right and vice versa for the left, and press a button on either handle to rotate the piece. Tucker built the Tetris Weightlifting machine out of an open source version of Tetris and a Phidgets electronic sensor. "Users expressed high satisfaction with the system," says this promotional poster. "They focused more on game-play than on exercise, setting goals based on in-game cues rather than traditional metrics such as number of repetitions." It sounds like my kind of workout, but Tucker doesn't say how many calories players can actually burn. You can download the Java source for his customized version of Tetris as well as the C# code for his sensor controller.

[Via Waxy.org]

TransGaming, known for its Cedega product which allows Windows games to run on Linux, has just announced Cider, a similar product for Intel Macs. Cider (get it--Apple, Cider?) is aimed at game developers and allows them to make their games work on Intel Macs without any source code changes. "Games are simply wrapped up in the Cider engine and they work on the Mac," says the Cider web site. According to TransGaming's FAQ, Cider's business model is a revenue-sharing one, meaning TransGaming gets a cut of the revenues from the sale of Cider-enabled game. I wonder if that means makers of freeware games can use it for free.

[Via Gamer Scan]

By now you've probably heard about Zune, the new Microsoft iPod killer reportedly out later this year. Possibly you saw this on Engadget, or this on Microsoft-Watch, maybe somewhere else. But what does it all mean?

First, Microsoft is way behind the eight ball. Apple has such a lead in this market that, at this point, it really isn't funny anymore. This may be a classic "tortoise and the hare" story if Apple sits on their laurels and Microsoft comes up with a killer device. In my not so humble opinion, however, neither of these two things will happen. Microsoft's device may have some advantages to Apple's little white player, but there is no way that it will completely uproot the iPod Universe. Apple has done a good job of embedding the iPod into our popular culture, and it's clear that the company doesn't make a habit out of doing nothing. Apple's agile business strategy, led by some of the brightest minds of our time, is on the offensive.

Ultimately, it will be interesting to see what Apple shakes the grape vine with next. I am a little worried for Apple in the gaming department, since Apple isn't a major player at this point, and it's one place Microsoft has a clear advantage. What is going to help the next iPod stay ahead of Microsoft's Zune initiative?

Using Google Earth as a gaming environment is a great strategy. What better place to game than in a real environment? No need to create new environments, and obstacles.

Julian is in the process of ripping out a Battleship game utilizing Google Earth! Juian has been playing around with Google's newly acquired Sketchup application, and modeling some ships and pegs for use in the online game.

Users have to download a Google Earth KML file in order to start out. This kml will update every once and a while to account for newly added pegs. This new game that Julian is working on will allow users to use GPS's connected to cell phones, and call into the game to play.

[Props to Philipp Lenssen finding this one on Digg.]

Keen readers may have noticed the little dogear up in the corner linking to Weblogs, Inc.'s newest blog, PS3 Fanboy. You may think we have our obsessions here at Download Squad, but you haven't seen obsession until you visit the fanboys (and girls!) over there. They couldn't be more excited about Sony's Playstation 3, and if your enthusiasms run along the same lines, do yourself a favor and check it out.

Gamer's Internet Tunnel allows you to connect separate LAN's together and play online games. As a practical upshot, you can play PS2 online games as well, like TimeSplitters 2. There's a how-to on setting up GIT with TS2 on NeoAvalon. It's a good overview of GIT as well, though you'll need to know a couple of things about networking. Similar projects include XBConnect (for Xbox) and Warp Pipe (for, you guessed it, GameCube). As usual, most of these are betas, but it's nice to see the development progressing quickly.