Midway Games today issued a press release with eight new screenshots from the September release of Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, announcing also the re-design of the game's official website. From the release:

This September, prepare to experience the world of Mortal Kombat from an entirely new, action/adventure perspective in Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks.

Set in the time period between the first MK Tournament and MK II, you'll be challenged to explore the always dangerous and action-driven Mortal Kombat universe (in either single and/or co-op mode) through the eyes of two of the franchise's most popular Shaolin Monks: Liu Kang & Kung Lao.

Stay tuned for much more on Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks in the upcoming weeks as we draw closer to the game's September 19th ship date!

Click on the screenshots below for a larger high-res view:

The official site contains some of these same screenshots and other assets at a lower resolution. As well, Cinder posted a plethora of screenshots and koncept pieces on Midway's official forums. While most are duplicated from the official site's website, a few unique pieces can be found.

The demo of Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks has actually in stores for quite a while - August 9, officially. Unofficially, some lucky people got it earlier, and some later. By this time, everyone in the U.S. should have fairly easy access to the demo at stores near them. Check out the pics below in case you need help in finding which issues of OPM or OXM to look for:
Unfortunately, the demo discs are not identical. The PS2 version is very rich in special features, including a short image trailer which shows off some of the cool artwork from the game, and a really nice "Behind the Scenes" video which will probably be included in the final game. Presumably, the extra features are included in the PS2 version to make up for the someone toned down violence in that version of the demo. While X-Box users get to enjoy all the blood and gore of the final version, PS2 users will see black blood instead of the normal red. In addition, Fatalities and some of the more graphic cut-scenes are censored out as well, as can be seen in one of the pics below. Overall, this game is very enjoyable no matter what system you're playing the demo on. Check it out in stores everywhere, and good luck finding all of the hidden secrets!

Over on the Midway Boards, Cinder has come through again with another piece of koncept art from Midway's upcoming Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks! This time, he posted something a little bit different; instead of posting character art, he posted koncept art of the MK:SM version of one of Mortal Kombat II's most popular arenas: the Dead Pool!

To see the thread in which the koncept art was originally posted, click here.

Our thanks to forum/chat member DECEPTION for the heads-up on this piece of koncept art!

Updates keep coming in for the highly anticipated release of Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, and this time it's more video footage from both Gamespot and IGN! Gamespot has updated with a new Developer interview from Midway's upcoming release of Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks. To have a look at this new interview, go here to find out how Mortal Kombat II and Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks both relate to each other. IGN has updated as well with new Multality and Versus mode videos! To see them, go here.

This week has been a busy one on MKO, so thanks goes out to everyone whom sent in News Leads!

We said that the coverage of Midway's Summer Gamers Day 2005 was over. Well, we were almost right. While digging through our spare tapes, we found a clip from Midway's upcoming Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks which has not been seen yet! This clip, which is one of the many FMVs which pop up during the game, shows the first ever meeting between Sonya Blade and Baraka, during the assault on the Wu Shi Academy. Furthermore, this clip sets up the backstory to how Sonya became a part of one of Mortal Kombat II's most famous backgrounds...

• Sonya Blade Meets Baraka - Low Quality
• Sonya Blade Meets Baraka - Medium Quality

To watch the videos, you will need Apple's Quicktime media player, which you can download here.