After explaining the fishing feature for the upcoming The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar expansion, Book 13: Doom of the Last-King, we bring you the latest developer diary which takes on the Orc Defiler. It also includes some stuff about the new Monster Play. More details after the jump.

Remember PipeMania (a.k.a. Pipe Dream), folks? It's back, and the plumbing problem is worse than ever. Prepare for the flooze when the game hits this summer. Details on the game in the full article. You might also want to read the full article if you don't know what flooze is.

It's a fact: many gamers just can't get enough of Snake's exploits in the Metal Gear Solid franchise. But there's something for PSP gamers: meet Bob, the spherical protagonists in Metal Blob Solid, the side-scroller action game that may just endear its way into the hearts of hardcore Snake fans. Check out the changelog in the full article!

Download: Metal Blob Solid Blob Wars: Episode 1

For those of us keeping tabs on the latest Dragon Quest title that gives us as a sword and a horde of grinning things to cut up with it, Square Enix's Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors, here are three TV spots that not only gives us a sneak peek at gameplay, but also some of the characters we'll be traveling with in our journey of slashing things up with sharp metal objects. Since they're all in Japanese, let's just appreciate the eye candy.

One thing to note in the videos are the slimes you'll be facing off against, and it's rather cute - and disturbing -  that they've retained the ability to stack themselves up on each other, before molding together into one BIG slime. Nothing new about that, but it's certainly scary to it actually happen in front of you. And it's still smiling!

In any case, enjoy the TV spots.

The other TV spots after the jump!

Some things are seemingly uninteresting to the naked eye but when you dissect them and put them under a microscope, they become a thousand times more interesting.

Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition is a contest for microphotographs of things (still living and once living). Olympus, a company specializing in imaging and optics, holds this annual event and got together a panel of micropists to serve as judges. Each entry was judged for scientific contribution, aesthetic quality, and technical excellence. The winners for which was announced last December.

Anyway, the picture above got the first prize. Can you take a guess? It's a blown up picture of a mouse retina, under 550x magnification. The other winners include motor neurons, zinnia flower primordium, stamen of Mirabilis jalapa, a visualization of living animal T cells attacking target cells, slime mold, golden algae, proboscis of common housefly, gypsy flower, and pulmonary epithelial cells of a live bovine.

Can you tell which is which?

The rest of the images await after the jump!

You gotta give it to Square Enix. They have practically established themselves as one of the best game-makers of our generation, and they are so revered, that the moment they announce a game, the population rejoices and the world suddenly becomes a better place once again.

And so it was when DQ fans got wind of the upcoming Wii title, Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors. The cha-cha was danced, some broke into song, and most started practicing their shield blocks and sword parries. ... Well, the game DOES require you to use the Wiimote as a sword and a shield afterall.

Also, who are we to argue when the Dragon Quest creator himself has made it this way? So when Yuuji Horii tells you to block with the nunchuck attachment, you do as you're told, dammit. See those cute green Slimes in these new V-Jump scans? If Horii says you have to cut through them with your Wiimote, then you do just that.

The Square Enix charm remains strong. Never mind that the game is the 24678th installment to a series, or if it's about a chocobo who can read, or a slime ball who has to save his village of other slime balls. It's already a given that we'd fall for it each and every time because Squeenix works with things that we've fallen in love with long ago, things that are already close to our hearts, but given a different twist. Now that's some strong magic right there.

More images of Horii's hit-list after the Jump!

After getting a glimpse of Tabula Rasa's weapons and equipment, it's high time to meet the creatures who'll most likely be the unwilling victims of your target practice. We've heard about them in the past, but seeing what they actually look like would help us strategize when we enter the world of Tabula Rasa.

They're quite a mean bunch, but you'd have to watch out for Light Benders who happen to be the Bane's stealth units. Be careful when you go deep in the forests of Foreas as this is where the tree-dwelling carnivourous predator called The Lurker lives. The Warnet and the Xanx may look a tad like your favorite seafood, but that doesn't mean they're not lethal. Warnet are flying creatures, while Xanx are agressive parasitical arachnid who's has nothing else in mind but to defend their nests.

Rounding up the creatures list are the following:

• Howler - as the name suggests, these creatures use energy to propel their voice, which empowers the Bane forces, but at the same time causing terror to enemy forces.
• Flare Gasher  - cracks its prey's hardened shells using extremely high-pitched sonic attack.
• Maw - a worm that disguises as a large bush/flower when it hunts its prey
• Amoeboid - vomits a ball of slime that jams weapons used by its enemies
• Penal Robots of Ariek - ordered to maintain discipline in the penal colonies on Ariekie; self-repairing
• Brann - came from a once-thriving society destroyed by the Bane.

   

 
More creatures await after the jump!

Over at Gamasutra, the winners of the Quantum Leap Awards for role-playing games have finally been announced. They have gone on to ask game industry professionals to cast their votes as to which RPG, on any platform ever created, "has brought the genre forward in the biggest way". In that same sense, voters were posed with the question: "Which role playing game over the entire history of the genre do you think has made the biggest 'quantum leap', and why?"

Well, the votes have been cast, and the top five have been named. But since five is such a small number, one can't help but give out honorable mentions to other game titles which have helped the genre and the industry.

Want to find out who these honorable mentions are and which games are held in high esteem by RPG experts? Read on, and find out!

Read the full article after the Jump!

  

"Depths" quest series in House Deneith now gets an update, and for all Dungeons and Dragons Online fans, there's a whole lot of new stuff in store for you. The update includes a new list of bestiary, NPCs, Quests, and Zones.

An incomplete list of updated Bestiary includes Lesser Violet Slime, Skeleton, Lesser Gray Ooze, Argor Soulbane, Black Widow, Zombie,  Troglodyte, Gray Ooze, Hobgoblin Infiltrator, Wolf, Hobgoblin Slayer, Hobgoblin Witch Doctor, Troll and many more.  The update gives you more info about the Level, Type of monster, Classification, Habitat, Weak vs. (weapon), Feats and Spells effective against a particular monster, and its special abilities.

The updated NPCs includes Giggs Elorreathi, Scholes of Vedykar, Keane d'Deneith, and Neville Stormhammer. This gives you the Type, Zone, and Description of the Quest.

The updated Quests let you on new stuff for The Depths of Despair, The Depths of Darkness, The Depths of Discord and The Depths of Doom. Here, you get a chance to read more about the Rating, Start NPC, Starting Zone, Starting Level, Length, Temp Access to (the database), and Related Monsters. There's more about Objectives, Opt. Objectives, Factions Raised, Related Zones, Related Quests, Effective Feats, and Effective Spells as well. 

The updated Zones for all the updated Quests above give you hints about  the Level, Type (of gameplay/location), Bordering City Areas, Dungeons (in the particular Quest), Zone Information, Description, and the Map of the particular Quest.

  

If you're fat, pudgy, and your last name is Slime, you're supposed to be less than popular with any kind of crowd. Yet, the game Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime seems to be getting quite a lot of paramours. It's the latest game from Square Enix about the lovable and adorable Rocket Slime of the Dragon Quest series. It's his first adventure on his own and it's on the DS.

We give you the highlights of the IGN review. According to the writer, the game is a mixture of Zelda, Pokemon, and gigantic fortress tanks. Whoa, two excellent games in one? No wonder he scored it high (8.5). Let's take the report apart shall we?

The gameplay is simple but enjoyable. The game can be started and finished using only one button. Since Rocket can only do one thing (jump), he will have to get creative with the way he dispatches foes. He usually stretches like a rubber band and then slingshot himself to the enemy. Imagine if you were a big fella and then all of a sudden this little blue gooey knocks you out. Nobody gets over that kind of humiliation. Ever. He's cooler with friends and allies, he carries them around on his head as he goes through his little adventure. Simple, but is it too simple?

The simplicity of the controls and the almost non-existent use of the second half of the screen was what made this game get a bad rap as a "children's game only." However, it gets deeper as the game progresses. For instance, Rocket can summon gigantic mobile fortresses to do battle with, however only certain fellow townsmen can do the controls. The more rescued townsmen, the more abilities your tank can do. Suddenly it just got deep around here. It's going to get deeper still with the multiplayer option.

Multiplayer is good enough. Up to 4 players can link up and play this game. Each will control his or her own tank as they try to outwit, outlast, ans outdo each other on a battlefield. Unfortunately it's multi-cart and there is no online or Wi-Fi support.

The visuals and sounds are satisfying. If you've seen the cartoon and past games you know to expect quite a lot of physical and visual humor. You'll see over-exaggerated animations, several characters in the screen, and solid character, level, and interface looks. The audio and music is strong enough. The article says that it corresponds to the mood of the game, and the sound effects are funny. From what we've read, it seems this game is simply beautiful. Available in stores now.

Buy: [Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime]