Each week, Featured Freeware profiles a trio of freeware titles that we consider worth your while.

A new Browser’s Best, Xbox Live Indie Spotlight, Indie Sales and now this, it’s a Tax Day miracle. Happy Birthday, Merry Kwanza and all that. My words are mostly saved for the game’s below but let me preface the goodness by saying that all three of these are gems and should at least be given a spin, after all they’re free.

Action Fist (5.53 MB): A 2D action platformer with some style and plenty of tongue-in-cheek humor, this is a must play for anyone into the old arcade side-scrollers, with platform gameplay mixed with Metal Slug action. Lots of power-ups and bosses to use them against with frequent enough save spots never setting you back too far.

The game uses a color-coordinated weapon switching mechanic which is encouraged by better damage against your enemies with the correct blasts, it takes a bit of getting used to at first but as you progress you’ll figure it out pretty quick.

The title features both single player and co-op modes and can be played on Kitty, Easy, Normal or Hero mode.

Drone (10 MB): Wow, we’re only two-thirds in and this may be our best featured freeware yet, David W. Wilson’s Drone is a fantastically deep top-down tower defense game with real-time strategy, simulation and RPG elements thrown in as well. When you get into the game I suggest you hit the tutorial, if not all the options and available pull down menus may be a bit overwhelming at first, the tutorial is quick and breaks the basic functions down for you quite understandably.

900 hours have been sunk into the title (so far) and it shows. The amount of polish along with the sheer addictiveness of the game makes it a must play. Add onto that the several hours of gameplay you get from this initial release of the title and you wonder why the guy isn’t charging, more please.

Zombie Movie (6.9 MB): Yup, best FF ever (out of the now three count ‘em). As we finish our trio with a refreshing top-down zombie shooter that puts a couple of twists on the now over-crowded genre.

EDM Games has a caveat for your undead killing, you gotta stay on camera. A helicopter with a demanding director hovers above giving more points to the player who kills the totally real killer zombies near the shadow of the copter. Not only do you get less points if you stray too far away from the shadow, you’ll eventually get fired, if you do your job well enough you’ll probably get eaten, but you’re greeted with something pretty sweet upon your death: a ton of stats. Zombies killed, pickups grabbed even how many you got under the choppah.

At times your bastard director thinks you’re having too easy of a time with it and throws all sorts of different crap you’re way. Using the med packs wisely and not letting too many zombies crop up becomes critical as well as the constant worry of maximizing your points. I’m not sure if you can complete an entire film shoot, I never could, but if you do it’s certainly no small feat as the game throws the kitchen sink.

Did you know we are running a kickass forum contest where you could win one of two copies of the hilarious, robot-ninja infused multiplayer game: Plain Sight? Well now you do… check it out at our forums!

Each week, Featured Freeware profiles a trio of freeware titles that we consider worth your while.

A new Featured Freeware for your digestion, with two of today’s titles involving the rodent order. This rendition’s triple-play includes a point-filled pointless, a switcheroo and a paper shooter with an interesting mechanic.

Let’s Win Forever (3.03 MB): First let me say that this game carries no real objective, if you have a problem with pointlessness you probably should skip this and head on to the other, less nonsensical titles below.

Amon26′s Let’s Win Forever is just that, winning for as long as you want. You simply use your mouse to shoot colored gerbils, when you connect you will receive an absurdly high, totally innocuous amount of points, and the gerbils hit by the shot will turn white and jetpack off. That’s the whole game, THAT’S IT.

Very simple and as short as you want it to be, but shooting the gerbils, watching them blast off, gaining and losing millions of points completely randomly while reading computer based text in the background of a seizure-inducing screen with funny music, seems to add up to more than the couple minutes max you’ll spend playing this.

Teleportower (1.85 MB): Back to normal, well as normal as freeware should be. Teleportower is a puzzle platformer with five towers each containing 10 levels to play. Each level has two rooms, one where your character is located, the other with a shadow version of you that will mimic your exact movements.

The objective is to try to reach the gem in each area by jumping, climbing and (when the time is right) switching your physical presence with your shadow. At times, traps will appear, forcing you to make a quick move followed by a teleport jump, a neat concept not dissimilar to the kind of gamplay mechanics seen in Braid.

The game isn’t too difficult, most shouldn’t have too much trouble once they get the teleporting concept down, which is of course simple in itself. The music is fantastic and adds to the charm of this solid piece of freeware.

Choke on my Groundhog, you Bastard Robots (7 MB): Here’s a bit of a standout, Petri Purho’s graph paper shooter Choke on my Groundhog, you Bastard Robots not only lives up to its name, it has me wanting more.

Another simple concept, you and your groundhog loaded gun must live through a seemingly endless barrage of robots by making it through the timed levels alive, no worries if you die though, in fact it’ll only help. Every time a robot kills your character, you must start the level over, however the previous version(s) of you will be around to help by repeating their movements and shots automatically. That means if you die five times before you reach the end of the level you’ll have five former versions helping out your current character’s run through of the level.

It’s a lot of fun to work with your past-selves as explosions are much bigger if several guns target an area, but on the flip side it also promotes the challenge of trying to make it through each level with as little help from your dead clones as possible. My only real complaint with the game is that now that I’m done with it I keep envisioning what it would be like with more gameplay depth. Alas, a common blessing and curse of the freeware scene.

Each week, Featured Freeware profiles a trio of freeware titles that we consider worth your while.

Join us why don’t you for this week’s Featured Freeware. Today’s trifecta includes a one-button side scroller, a unique platformer and a title that has players participating in boss battles, and boss battles only.

Vatn Squid (7.60 MB): Created during Game Jolt’s Weekend Jam, Ted Lauterbach’s Vatn Squid is a vertical shooter that is unique in that every battle is a boss battle. You take control of a vessel that can shield itself at the press of a button, if you collect enemy bullets during your short period of invincibility the ship’s super weapon is charged up and can be used to heavily damage your enemy.

There are a total of ten bosses to beat, see if you can make it through all of them on the first go through.

Fish Face (3.36 MB): Originally created for the Gamma IV competition, Beau Byth’s Fish Face is a one-button moving side-scroller that offers three levels to play. Here you play as a fish that uses its buoyancy to move in and out of the water, avoiding walls or enemies that will damage your fish’s face.

Red loops are there for points, while the blue ones are actually checkpoint locations that you’ll return to if/when you crash into a solid object. Playing through all three levels takes around 20-30 minutes, depending on how many times you must return to checkpoints.

Jump, Copy, Paste (2.20 MB): Hempuli’s Jump, Copy, Paste is a platformer where you deal with dead-ends and obstacles by copy and pasting parts of a level to build new platforms and create passages through walls. Certain areas are greyed out and cannot be affected by your ability, meaning you’ll have to work around as you attempt to collect all the yellow pieces to unlock the exit.

There are seventeen levels to play through, and as most good platformers do, JCP increases in difficulty as you progress through and begin to run into the likes of enemies, laser beams, sawblades, switches and portals. Very cool gamplay concept.