Our eagle eyed Community Member Kamal informed us last night that the new show Nikita showed a clip of Mortal Kombat (2011). In the clip a couple of villans are playing the game between some hacking they were doing. Check out the clip in it's entirety below:

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This is the isn't the first appearance of Mortal Kombat on TV during a non-gaming show, as Lopez Tonight's E3 showcase was a few months ago, but it is the first appearance of it on a non-cable network. What I also found interesting was the potentially coincidental use of the phrase "killer instinct" which we all know there is a great fighting game of the same name that was popular during the 90s.

The third part of episode two of the MKast Season 2 video podcast has now been posted to YouTube. The crew at NetherRealm Studios continues their detailed Q+A with fans. Some new revelations are details on the throwing system, combo breaker changes, mini-games as well as a new updated Temple background can be spotted during the in-game footage.

FYI, you must be logged into YouTube in order to see the video. In addition, you must be older than 17 to view the video due to ESRB regulations compliance. If you are having problems, goto the main MK Community Manager page to view the video.

We expect the final part of this extensive Q+A episode of MKast to follow in the next week or two. Until then, check back Monday for our review of the cell phone port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for cell phones that was released this week.

An eagle eyed TRMK Community Member, ShawnBronald, stumbled upon a few nuggets of information that appear to be from or related to the upcoming game Mortal Kombat (2011).

Due to an accidental misconfiguration on part of the Official Mortal Kombat web server, users were able to browse one of the subdomain's file directory freely. Inside of the directories there were lots of character intro voice over files. These new voice overs are the same ones used before a match begins in Mortal Kombat (2011). By looking at all the filenames he easily discovered all new unannounced characters and potential story line spoilers and additional game features not revealed yet. There was some really awesome new stage music too. The files all appear to be assets for part of an iPhone optimized website or app and are not supposed to be accessible to the public. The issue was resolved by WB Games a few hours after word spread across the community, and the files are thusly no longer available to listen to.

We feel that not everyone may want to hear the news since the reveals have come before schedule and without official confirmation, so for now we will be treating this leak as spoiler material. We would rather protect them from those who want to learn of characters and features as NetherRealm Studios and WB Games wants to officially unveil them. Also keep in mind, since this is just a few sound files, we can't be certain what role (if any) these items relate to anything official in any final product.



Head on over to ShawnBronald's thread to read more on it. So we also urge you to keep all spoiler discussion in that thread so the rest of the community can be excited as things are revealed.

Updated 5:00pm: Did some cleanup and clarification of the article and all it's updates to make it a bit more coherent.

Back during E3 an idea was spread all over the internet that PS3 fans really wanted to play as Kratos from God of War in a Mortal Kombat. The campaign to get the idea traction was all thanks to the group Hip Hop Gamer Show who even asked Ed Boon himself the question during a panel Q+A session at PAX 2010 after they heard that God of War lead designer David Jaffe would be in favor of the idea.

Fast forward to last night when the website StickSkills posted a story announcing that Kratos would be unveiled in Mortal Kombat (2011) in a future issue of a PlayStation magazine. We were immediately skeptical due to the lack of which Official PlayStation Magazine it would be in. The story itself felt weak and without real backing of proof, but many sites followed suit with posting it soon after.

Here is a bit of their story:

Thanks to the January issue of the Official Playstation Magazine, we've learned just who that character is. When Mortal Kombat drops next year in March, Playstation 3 owners will be able to use an exclusive character none other than Kratos himself from the God of War series. Not only will Kratos be featured in the game, he'll have his own fatalities, combat moves, and his very own God of War themed combat arena.

While Kratos will be featured in the game, he won't be a playable character in the story mode. We're rather happy to see Kratos make his entry into the Mortal Kombat series, as he's known as one of the more iconic members of the Playstation 3 family and he loves violence.

Since we were skeptical so we ignored it. The story felt fishy, especially since a magazine due to be on newsstands in a few weeks would likely already be in subscriber hands. Not only that, but we felt that the announcement, if it was true, was a bit pre-mature since the final official roster of the game hasn't even been unveiled yet.

This morning we were proven wrong. We woke up to find that God of War lead designer David Jaffe confirmed the story over Twitter late last night in a series of "tweets" to his followers. You can read a few of the things he said below:

.@WhoIsDo LOVE that Kratos is in the new MK. So bummed he's not in the story portion. Heard about it from Ed at E3 this year and had to keep super mum on it but man, ****ing LOVE it. He totally fits in that world.I shit you not- on some level I feel like all the characters I work on are alive and that I have a relationship with them and I can tell you, if I know Kratos- and I do!- he's ****ing LOVING his time in the MK Universe. I bet he makes a shit ton of friends there. He should pull Zeus in and ****ing leave his ass there!

@masterkjn I have not seen any footage of Kratos in MK. Eager to tho.

@Evilmajikman Nightwolf or Kano seems like good conceptual fits for Kratos' MK tag team partner.

A few of his later comments were even more obscene, but you can read everything on his Twitter page.

This is all that we know at this time, but I expect we'll know more if and when the magazine with the details surface in the coming weeks. We personally feel that bonus characters like Kratos that don't have anything to do with the main storyline should be left as a hidden character to avoid distracting from the game itself at launch. Maybe even a later released DLC feature. So we'll have to see what WB Games and NetherRealm Studios decides to do with the character once they officially announce it.

Update 9:20am: Thanks to TRMK Community member MEMortalKombat for pointing us to a link to a GameTrailers teaser video about a new character will be revealed for Mortal Kombat (2011) at this Saturday's Spike Video Game Awards (VGAs). The way it's worded feels like it's going to be a MK outsider like Kratos that will be announced.

Also take this opportunity to be sure to write in "Mortal Kombat" for the VGA's Most Anticipated Game of 2010 here. Remember to vote as often as possible, we're hearing Mortal Kombat may have a chance!

Tonight at the Spike TV Video Game Awards, Kratos from the God of War series was officially unveiled to be entering the Mortal Kombat (2011) Tournament on the PlayStation 3. Here is the bad ass announcement trailer:

Video Games | Mortal Kombat | VGA 10: Exclusive Kratos Reveal Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

We don't know more beyond the previously leaked information. Hopefully we'll get more details about his inclusion in the coming weeks.

Update: Sadly Mortal Kombat (2011) did not win the Most Anticipated Game of 2011, that went to the Portal 2. It was a tough fight fans, but thanks for all the write in votes for the game. We heard MK actually had a shot, but it's hard to win when the game wasn't given a proper nomination slot.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment today releases a special extended trailer for the award-winning and iconic fighting game Mortal Kombat, featuring the playable warrior Kratos -- from the renowned God of War® series -- exclusively for the PlayStation® 3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system.

Launching in April 2011 and developed by NetherRealm Studios, Mortal Kombat is available for pre-order now on both the PS3 and Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. The game will be available to consumers in three editions– Standard Edition, Kollector’s Edition and Tournament Edition.

Details of three different editions of Mortal Kombat:

• The Standard Edition featuring the award-winning Mortal Kombat game.
  
• The Kollector’s Edition featuring the award-winning Mortal Kombat game, Sub-Zero and Scorpion figurines, a collectible art book, downloadable content that includes an exclusive Mortal Kombat Klassic costume skin and avatar costumes.
  
• The Tournament Edition featuring the award-winning Mortal Kombat game, a portable fight stick, and downloadable content that includes an exclusive Mortal Kombat Klassic costume skin and avatar costumes. The number of tournament editions is very limited with only 20,000 copies available in North America.

Players will be able to pre-order any of the above at North American retailers as of today. Specific pre-order programs include:

• Gamestop: Customers who pre-order their copy of Mortal Kombat at Gamestop will get exclusive access to the Klassic Scorpion Playable Character Skin and the original Scorpion Fatality.
  
• Best Buy: Customers who pre-order their copy of Mortal Kombat at Best Buy will get exclusive access to the Klassic Sub-Zero Playable Character Skin and the original Sub-Zero Fatality.
  
• Amazon: Customers who pre-order their copy of Mortal Kombat on Amazon.com will get exclusive access to the Klassic Reptile Playable Character Skin and the original Reptile Fatality.
  

Mortal Kombat will feature Kratos as a playable character, as well as be in Stereoscopic 3-D exclusively in the PS3 version. The brutal warrior from the acclaimed God of War franchise will have his own customized move set, fatality, and fighting arena, available to all original purchasers when Mortal Kombat hits stores.

Update 11am CST The first look at Amazon's Klassic Reptile Playable Character Skin pre-order bonus has been revealed. Check it out below, the return to a classic Reptile look just solidified our reasons to pre-order the game via Amazon.



Update 11:30am CST We have uploaded today's Mortal Monday feature, the extended Kratos Announcement Trailer

Update 5:00pm CST: We have finally got pictures of the two special edition retail sets directly from Rigo Cortes Community Manager at NetherRealm Studios. It seems to show the final box art along with the various items included in each set. Also revealed in these pictures is that the Xbox 360 version may be coming with Xbox 360 Exclusive Xbox Avatar based "King of the Hill" online mode along with Avatar Clothing. We are also not sure what the Sub-Zero statue looks like at this time, we were only sent pictures of the Scorpion statue.

Click the thumbnail images below for larger pictures.

The Kratos announcement trailer from Saturday night's Spike TV Video Game Awrads was cut down for time and content. Luckily we can now present you the full unedited version of the trailer below for today's Mortal Monday.

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The details we got earlier today show that Kratos will be "pack in DLC" for PlayStation 3 owners. Which means a card with a code to unlocked will be included in the box when you buy it. That means anyone buying the game used will likely not be able to play as Kratos if the code wasn't used, or will have to purchase his DLC character separately.

A few weeks ago EA Mobile release Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for Java capable phones. Now we just learned they are set to release an upcoming iPhone port for the game before Christmas. KnowYourMobile has a first look review of the game, along with a video of the game itself. So no longer is our mockup April Fools joke the only iPhone port of Mortal Kombat.

The article claims the game was updated with 3D models for this platform, so it's likely many changes have been made to this port like the recent J2EE port to make the game a better fit for the platform. The game will have only 11 playable fighters, down from the original roster of 22. But it's likely that the two bosses (Goro? and Shao Kahn) may be unlockable as they are on the J2EE version. On that note they actually added a whole new mode to the game called Shao Karnage that we're itching to check out. The game will also feature local multiplayer over WiFi.

We expect to get our hands on it and a review out the door as soon as the game is available, along with our yet unpublished J2EE review. Until then, here is their video to get an idea of how the game looks.



Thanks to reader @bnz27 on Twitter for letting us know!

Update 4:30pm: Thanks to this forum thread over at TouchArcade we got a few screenshots of the game. Not in love with this 3D remake of the game, I would have preferred a scaled up 2D pixels instead of this effort. The earlier Java J2ME port ends up looking far better because of that. Click the thumbnails for a full sized screenshots.




Update 12/15 9pm CST: The port should be available tomorrow Thursday December 16th, 2010 according to GameplayBook for $6.99 USD. Sounds like it may be iPad native as well, which is good news for owners of many devices. Start checking your AppStore starting at midnight in your timezone for it to show up! Stay tuned for our review coming soon!

Kratos is not going to be the only feature in the new issue of Playstation The Official Magazine. In January's issue (#41) the telekinetic warrior in red, Ermac, will also be featured and unveiled for the first time. The issue should be showing up on newsstands this week, so let us know once you find it. We've heard this issue features Kratos on the cover so should be quite easy to find.

Thanks to Mortal Kombat Online and their forum member Jest0311 for the heads up!

UPDATE: The official Playstation.Blog has been updated with the cover shot of Kratos and Scorpion.

The final part of episode two of the MKast Season 2 video podcast has now been posted to YouTube. The crew at NetherRealm Studios continues their detailed Q+A with fans. Some new revelations in this episode are are details on the enhanced special moves system, the deepness of tag team play as well as how the dashing system works today.



The video also shows us the first in game footage of Sonya as well the first looks at a new stage.