The Most Informative Mortal Kombat Source on the Web

Shaolin Monks goes out of its way to create a vibe very much like that of MK II. The opening level has you battling ugly, ogre-looking creatures inside Goro's lair. As you progress, you'll eventually end up at the bottom of the classic pit stage, complete with plenty of corpses impaled on the spikes around you. In fact, once you climb out of the pit after a brief platforming sequence, you can uppercut enemies into the pit. À la MK II, the game even goes the extra mile of switching to a top-down camera view of the enemy shrieking as it falls to its doom. The graphics shown in the demo weren't exactly awe inspiring from a technical perspective, but aesthetically, they caught the feel of old-school Mortal Kombat very well.

Cameos from Mortal Kombat favorites, such as Reptile, look to be commonplace.
Of course, Liu Kang and Kung Lao aren't the only classic characters to make an appearance in Shaolin Monks. During the course of our play time, we counted no fewer than three brief cameos from characters like Raiden (who acts as your tutor during this first level,) Johnny Cage (who shows up just long enough to uppercut an ogre into the pit, as well as put on his trademark sunglasses,) and Reptile, (who disappears via his invisibility power before you get the chance to take him on). The demo was also bookended by a boss fight against everyone's favorite Outworldian ginsu knife, Baraka. The fight began simply enough, with us executing combos on the bladed one, while he did the same to us. After Baraka's health was depleted to a certain level, however, he jumped back across the stage to grab a couple of caged monks and then set them on fire. This made things a tad more difficult, as we now had to fight Baraka while a pair of flaming monks ran wild, constantly knocking into us and damaging us. It took a couple of well-placed fireballs to finally do away with the monks and resume the fight. The fight continued to build up to the big climax, and then right before we could actually vanquish Baraka, the game thanked us for trying the demo and ended. A painful, harsh tease, but effective, as we now can't wait to see what happens next.

Midway Announces Three for PSP
NBA Ballers, Mortal Kombat, and more on the way.
by Matt Leone
05/10/2005

In an exclusive announcement to 1UP today, Midway has revealed that three of its most popular franchises -- Mortal Kombat, NBA Ballers, and Midway Arcade Treasures -- are headed to the PSP.

Mortal Kombat: Deception (work ing title), feature-wise, will be almost identical to its console brothers, with online play, Konquest and Puzzle Kombat modes, interactive backgrounds, and more than one fatality for each fighter. It is scheduled to hit stores in Winter 2005.

NBA Ballers (working title) for PSP also looks to be similar to the console game, with the same focus on player cribs and lifestyle features, along with the return of the one-on-one gameplay that made the console game work so well. Players can also expect wireless multiplayer play, though the game won't ship until 2006.

Midway Arcade Treasures (working title) for PSP takes a best-of approach to the series, pulling in retro games from various MAT console versions. In addition to five single-player only games, MAT PSP will include 16 games playable over the PSPs wireless connection. The complete roster is as follows: Spy Hunter (single-player), Sinistar (single-player), Defender (single-player), Paperboy (single- player), 720 (single-player), Klax, Joust, Marble Madness, Toobin', Rampage (3-player), Gauntlet (4-player), Rampart (3-player), Wizard of Wor, Xybots, Championship Sprint, Arch Rivals, Cyberball 2072, Xenophobe (3-player), Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, and Mortal Kombat 3. MAT PSP is scheduled for release in Winter 2005.

The rest of Midway's E3 lineup includes: Blitz: The League, Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, L.A. Rush, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, The Suffering: Ties That Bind, Ed, Edd & Eddy: The Mis-Edventures, Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War, and Unreal Tournament 2007. With the exception of Unreal (which is due in 2006), all of these are on the way in the latter half of 2005.