MK
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Miller & Kreisel back from the dead, has new speakers to prove it
Fans of MK speakers, rejoice! After a small rough patch last year that saw the company use both sides of its "closed for business" / "yes we're open" sign, MK is showing signs of stability with product announcements. Based on their pro monitors, the MK Sound M-series includes the SB-8 and SB-12 subwoofers 8- and 12-inch cones, duh), M5 and M7 primary speakers, and the M-4T tripole surrounds (for when dipolar or bipolar surrounds just aren't diffuse enough). Naturally, all speakers are sonically and aesthetically matched, with 1-inch tweeters and 4-inch midrange drivers in the primary and surround channels (the M7 adds an additional 4-inch driver for a little more bass). If you're into accurate monitor-type sound, you might want to show some support for the new iteration of this mature brand.
Best of 2007: Worst attempt at a cash-in
During 2007, lots of companies realized that the Wii was doing good. Perhaps, too good. So, they scrambled to make games that they could port or "enhance" for the Wii, or other games that were made to take advantage of the console's adopters who were new to gaming and thus susceptible to spending money on crap games the unique capabilities of the Wii's controls scheme, causing a slew of cash-ins on the console that didn't necessarily bring anything new to the Wii other than another game sitting on the shelf. So, let's look at those games and you tell us what the most shameless and useless game of the lot is.
Ultimate Mortal Kombat trailer rips our heart out, lovingly caresses it
When we were all given the news that Ultimate Mortal Kombat would be gracing the DS, we found ourselves thoroughly excited at the prospect of playing online with the lot of you. Now that there's a trailer (conveniently embedded past the post break), we find our excitement to be almost immeasurable. November can't get here soon enough!%Gallery-4363%
Test your might online this November
We haven't been this excited about Mortal Kombat since the first time Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 came out, and we've never had any reason to be excited about a portable Kombat. But this is just too cool. Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon told IGN that a version of the classic fighting game will be coming to the DS-- with online play. Attention, developers: this is how you do a port on the DS.It'll also include Puzzle Kombat, the Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo clone found in Mortal Kombat Deception, which will also be playable online. The game will be out in November, and we look forward to eviscerating all of you at Game Night.In the game, we mean. We aren't planning to come to your houses and eviscerate any of you. We wouldn't even know how.
Totally visceral presentation of Mortal Kombat fatalities
What's more brutal than seeing gruesome fatalities performed before your eyes, while blood and bone spill all around and the hopeless fake cries of voice actors echo in your head? A list of moves in the PDF format. Those with weak stomachs should look away from the rawness. While this isn't as MORTAL KOMBAAAAAAAAAAT as, say, screenshots or video would be, we admit that we were pretty curious about how the moves in Mortal Kombat Armageddon were going to be pulled off (not curious enough to buy it, but certainly curious enough to read a thing on the Internet.) We knew waggling would be involved, but it's cool to learn what the specific waggles will be.This totally reminds us of downloading Mortal Kombat FAQs from Compuserve and leaving them to print from our dot-matrix printer overnight. Sometimes we'd wake up in the morning only to find that our pet dinosaur had shredded all the pages, forcing us to start over.[Via Joystiq]
New Mortal Kombat Armageddon screens
It's a little weird to release new screens of a port that looks pretty much identical to the versions that have been out since October, but that's okay! We're following Mortal Kombat Armageddon with interest, just because of the waggle. We are very curious about trying a waggle-fortified fighting game.One thing is certain from these screens: Nintendo is definitely not insisting on replacing the blood in this game with viscous grey sweat. Unless they're saying that in the Outworld, people sweat red-- by the gallon, out of gaping neck wounds. We've posted a gallery containing new screens-- FINISH THEM! Uh, by which we mean LOOK AT THEM!%Gallery-3141%
Mortal Kombat gets previewed, offers video as well [update 1]
During a preview for Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the Wii, Game Informer revealed that the preview build they were given was actually good. It was better than good, it was fun. And what exactly makes this game so fun? Well, we're glad to report it's the controls. What's odd about this piece, however, is the report that the folks developing this MK title wanted to include online functionality. What's even more odd though is that the reason given for not including the functionality is Nintendo hasn't given them any online-capable dev kits yet. This goes against the reports of third-party devs already receiving these.This doesn't make much sense to us, to tell the truth, even if Nintendo's Pokemon Battle Revolution is to kick off the Wi-Fi gameplay on the console. That doesn't mean the developers can't implement the code and just force those who have purchased the game to wait until after Pokemon before turning the Wi-Fi on, right?Update: Whoops, we got our dates mixed up. MK releases before Pokemon Battle Revolution, explaining why they can't implement online play. Our mistake as we had the DS Pokemon games in mind when we said April.
MK8 gets new spine: Unreal Engine 3
In an interview with Game Informer, Mortal Kombat maestro, Ed Boon, revealed that Mortal Kombat 8 will use the Unreal Engine 3. Boon realized that UE3 would be perfect for the next Mortal Kombat after playing Gears of War. "To me, when I saw Gears of War, I was like, 'Holy shit! That's the look that we've been talking about" (last we checked, the look you were talking about was people leaving behind 8 rib cages and 12 femurs when they explode). Beyond visual aesthetics, Boon states that his team will be throwing out all the recent iterations of MK and starting again from the ground up. Boon promises a new control scheme and play style. The changeable fighting stances, for instance, will not be returning.We're excited by the prospects of new Mortal Kombat. The last time Boon and company rebuilt Mortal Kombat, the series received a much needed kick in the pants. Here's hoping the newly redesigned version will become a similarly fresh experience. Don't get too excited though, the game isn't expected to ship until 2008.[Via Joystiq]
Videotality: MK Armageddon on Wii explained
When Ed Boon recently sat down with Gamespot to discuss the Wii installment of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, it appears their was a video to go along with it. In the video, not only does Ed discuss the controls for the game, but demonstrates them (to a degree). We've done our thing and embedded the video past the post break, now do yours a give it a watch.
Mortal Kombat Armageddon interview
Ed Boon likes the Wii. This makes us smile since he had made comments before that the Wii isn't a great place for fighting games. He has taken those hurtful comments back stating that it will be a good challenge to fit the game for the system. Mortal Kombat happens to be one of our favorite fighting games (entering the blood code while our parents weren't watching gave us quite the adrenaline rush) and we are thrilled to hear that the king of fighting gore is appearing on the Wii, especially when it brings every single MK character with it in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Anyway, MK god Ed Boon had a lot of nice things to say about the Wii including pearls like: "I hope the Wii is going to carve out its own market and will be very successful. As budgets for game development keeps going up and the prices for each system does the same, the Wii will become a more and more attractive option for both gamers as well as developers." When it came to talking about Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, he let us know that they are currently trying to find a way to fully utilize the Wiimote in this rather sticky transition. After all, we doubt you will find solace from fatalities with the usual combo breaker. Boon also stated that he would love to see classic Mortal Kombat games be a part of the Virtual Console. Again, we can't help but smile and twist our fingers in anticipation for Armageddon to reach our bloodthirsty fingers.
