Possibly the only thing standing between Google and a reputation as an evil empire is its often displayed quirky sense of humour. Most often seen in its daily doodle delights in the background of the search engine, they have many other humorous weapons at their disposal though.

The latest surprisingly hilarious hidden delight is Google’s Attack of the O’s in Zerg Rush, a brand new mini-game released by the Google machine. Be warned though, typing Zerg Rush into the search engine will release the O’s, once the O’s appear on screen they instantly begin to consume text.

Your mission if you choose to accept it is to triple click on each O before your entire search is devoured by the text hungry, ravenous O’s. Your hits and misses are recorded as the waves of Os wreak havoc on your search result. How long can you hold of the invading O’s, time to test your manual dexterity, your mastery over rodent at your right hand (or left).

It may be easily assumed a company named Google would have a penchant for making up words, this is not the case however for Zerg Rush. Zerg Rush is in fact an online gaming term used to describe an attack carried out on an overwhelming scale. Originating from the popular RTS – Real Time Strategy – game Starcraft in which the ‘Zerg’ race is notoriously known for its ability to mass-produce offensive units within a short time frame, thus allowing the player to overpower the opponent by sheer number.

Zerg Rush is just the latest in a long line of Easter Eggs, April Fools Jokes and humorous doodles, collectively these are Google’s amusing entertainments, a light hearted whimsical break. Still our favourite Google surprise was the Pacman game (May 21–23, 2010), a 30^th birthday present for Mr Pacman and a tribute to the games release 30 years earlier. Also included is Ms Pacman, accessed by repeated fast clicking of the ‘Insert Coin’ button. The game is still playable here.

If you dare, with nerves of steel, type Zeng Rush and get clicking, be sure your rodent is within warranty, this may be a glorious rodent killer. Google’s little amusements do indeed help to show the internet giant in a more human, friendlier light. There are people in the Google machine, people with intact and well developed senses of humour, who would have thought?

Access Zeng Rush By: Goto Google Search web page, Type Zerg Rush, Begin blasting O’s.

Reference: Google
Reference: Google Pacman