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Mortal Kombat creator (kreator?) Ed Boon has come forward, labeling recent reports of Midway's Chicago branch handing out pink slips to many of the individuals who worked on Mortal Kombat vs. DC as "completely false." Last week, numerous outlets reported that the troubled publisher and developer let go of around 20 to 30 employees following the completion of both the recent cross-universe brawler and Blitz: The League II.

However, speaking in an interview with GameDaily, Boon asserts that the Mortal Kombat team specifically is still together, and is already brainstorming on what to work on next. He adds that the crew is sizing up Mortal Kombat vs. DC's performance, as "it will have a good amount to do with what features we put in the next game." Of course, this says nothing of those in The Windy City who worked specifically on Midway's sequel to Blitz, or if the company decided to have them go long all the way to the unemployment line.

Midway plans to eviscerate PlayStation 2 owners this September, bundling together the previous three Mortal Kombat titles as a single $30 box set. The compilation, dubbed the Mortal Kombat: Kollection, will include 3D fighters Mortal Kombat: Deception and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, as well as the under appreciated action game, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks.

According to Midway, the set is designed to let players "refine their skills" prior to getting to clobber the Man of Steel this holiday. However, considering that Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe plays more like Mortal Kombat 3 than any of the more recent 3D fighters, we're not exactly sure how many of those skills will actually make the transfer.

We'd be surprised if anyone saw "Mortal Kombat movie" in the headline and decided to keep reading, regardless, we will continue on, if only for our own amusement. Entertainment news site Moviehole recently had the ... opportunity, we guess, to sit down with the director of the third chapter in the esteemed "Mortal Kombat" film franchise, a grown man who goes by the name of 'mink'. Yes, if there were anyone we could trust to revitalize this already sterling series of movies, a man with a penchant for weasels and poor capitalization skills would be first on our list.

mink mentioned that the film (which is still in pre-production) will not actually be a sequel, but instead, a "re-envisioning of the Mortal Kombat franchise from top to bottom." He also promises that the film will be an "A plus plus" title to try and "capture the magic of the first film." We're not convinced -- between Christopher Lambert's oddly effeminate portrayal of Raiden and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa's frequent, impassioned delivery of "YOUR SOUL ... IS MINE," we don't think that kind of lightning is capable of striking twice.

Atom Films hosts Kung-Fu Election, a Mortal Kombat knock-off fighting game starring Republican and Democratic primary front-runners. While the game is fairly deep -- boasting three attack buttons plus special moves -- the intro video snared us. Who knew Obama could shred like that?

See the non-embeddable video, play the game, then tell us how far you fared in the democratic primary tournament.

[Via AdRants]

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.

If you've ever hung out with us at Game Night, you probably know that Mario Kart DS is a popular choice among our readers. While we love a round of Mario Kart here and there, we'd probably love it even more if we were able to play it with guitars. And no, we're not talking about Guitar Hero controllers, but real guitars, as seen in the video above. Somehow, these guys have created a mod that let's them control video games (in this case, the original Mario Kart for SNES) by the pitch of their musical instrument. Aside from the fact that the video turns really trippy halfway through with no explanation, it's a pretty cool thing to watch.

Check after the break to see the Mortal Kombat guitar battle, which is slightly more entertaining even if it doesn't involve any fatalities.

Facing off against Washington State, the University of California, Berkeley's Golden Bears needed to show their might, their strength, and their willingness to perform a fatality if given a chance. During their half-time show, Cal's marching band performed a medley of video game songs, complete with gaming-themed drills (i.e. the band forms a giant Triforce and Master Sword while playing music The Legend of Zelda).

Keep an ear out for Zelda, Mortal Kombat, and various Mario tunes, among others. The Golden Bears went on to defeat Washington State 20-17, thus ending their three-game losing streak. Video is embedded after the break.

As firefighters battle to control ongoing wildfires in Southern California, almost 1 million people have been forced from their homes in what Bloomberg deems the largest evacuation in California's history. The blazes have also affected businesses, with GameDaily BIZ reporting that Midway employees have been asked to leave the publisher's San Diego offices (one of many spread across the world).

In response to less sensitive gamers asking, "But what about mah gamez?!" Midway has provided assurances that its development schedules remain unaffected and that the company's Mortal Kombat, Strangleholds and so forth remain in the hands of employees dutifully tinkering at home.

We'll admit that when approached with the subject of art in video games, Midway is not the first company that comes to mind. Not to say that their games are not art, as we sidestep that land mine and save the explosion for another day, but Midway's titles have never come across as particularly driven by aesthetic style, making us all the more curious as to the contents of Midway's newly released art book, The Art of Midway: Before Pixels and Polygons.

A 160-page collection of concept art for some of Midway's top titles, the book is said to include 200 illustrations covering such games as The Suffering and Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, to the more recently shipped Stranglehold. And of course you can bet there will be quite a few doodles from the Mortal Kombat franchise as well, with Baraka's toothy grin featured on the book's cover. However, what's more interesting to us are the unpublished works said to be included in the book from Midway artists such as Stephan Martinière, Vince Proce, Ben Olson, and Bruno Werneck. Our coffee table has been looking a bit barren lately, and this book would fit quite nicely next to the sweat ring and stack of back issues of People.

Though much of last night's hubbub was about the will they/won't they delay of Unreal Tournament 3, Midway also let a few other game releases slip in their financial report. One was an upcoming Mortal Kombat, which we already heard about, but Midway also confirmed that they were working on a new entry in the X-TrEmE football series, Blitz. You no doubt remember Blitz for its steroid juicing and the ability to send hookers to the opposing team more than for, say, the football part.

Though we're happy for any series that helps make EA want to put an effort into Madden, we can't help but be bothered by something. In a world where Chad Johnson celebrates touchdowns by finding Jimmy Hoffa and shooting fireworks from his fingertips, O.J. Simpson is on a nationwide crime spree and Michael Vick eats dogs whole, how much more extreme does football need to be?

We're starting to get annoyed with these "moving DS" game trailers. First seen in an early Insecticide ad, the technique places all game footage either on a DS screen or in a little window that is rapidly rotating and flying across the screen. For something designed to show you a game, they accomplish the exact opposite. In our eyes, such trailers convey a lack of confidence in the product.

We're only running this trailer, which is the second Ultimate Mortal Kombat trailer in this format, because, from what we can tell, Ultimate Mortal Kombat looks like a pretty faithful translation of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and we are happy any time a reasonable version of a fighting game is done on a handheld. Of course, we're also pleased about the added Puzzle Kombat.

[Via Game|Life]

We don't know how much stock you should put in this one, but it is a lot of fun to think about. TRMK.org is reporting a rumor they're working to confirm that the next Mortal Kombat game will include characters from the DC Universe. TRMK says that they've confirmed the VS. angle with their sources, but haven't been able to nail down the DC angle. What do we think? Well, how kind of you to ask.

Pretty much the only info we have to go on about the next MK comes from this interview with series chief Ed Boon. He has gone on record as saying the next in the series would be more "serious", which wouldn't seem to fit the men-in-tights vibe. But he's also said that will be a very different sort of MK. So we guess that makes it a wash on the probability scale. For our part, we can't stop wondering if we'll finally get to see Noob Saibot fighting Mister Mxyzptlk in the reverse linguistics battle of the century. ... Anybody?

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!

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