Midway Games has just announced that the Nintendo GameCube version of the award-winning fighting game Mortal Kombat: Deception has gone gold! In the gaming industry, when a game has "gone gold", it means the game has been completed and the final gold master disc has been sent out for mass production. In addition, the game will be released ahead of schedule; the GameCube version should hit stores on February 28th!

To read the press release in its entirety, click here.

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) held their 8th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in Las Vegas yesterday, and Mortal Kombat: Deception won the prize for the best fighting game! The awards ceremony is part of the D.I.C.E. Summit (Design, Innovate, Communicate and Entertain), an annual 3-day event held by the AIAS in which fellow video game developers choose amongst themselves the top games of the year.

"The Interactive Achievement Awards provide an important arena for the interactive entertainment industry to showcase the year's most outstanding video and computer games," said Joseph Olin., president of the AIAS.

This year's winners not only represent some of 2004's most popular games, but they also embody the spirit and innovation that has driven this industry since its inception."

Click here to read the full story, or here to check out the rest of the winners from the show. A big thanks to MK Online forum/chat user CAMK for the notice on this update!

UPDATE: Midway has just issued a press release concerning Mortal Kombat: Deception's win of this award. To read the press release, click here.

Midway Games and Epic Games have announced a multi-year licensing agreement that will allow Midway to use the award-winning Unreal Engine 3 in many of their upcoming games. This will allow Midway to focus more on creating great content for the games, as opposed to developing multiple engines from scratch for multiple genres. Spokesmen from both companies commented in today's announcement:

"Great next generation games will be defined by how far they push the envelope in terms of graphical prowess, evolved artificial intelligence and revolutionary online functionality beyond what gamers are currently experiencing," said David F. Zucker, president and chief executive officer of Midway. "Our obtaining the use of Unreal Engine 3 empowers us to begin today to produce great next generation content. Our internal studios are already in the process of creating incredible products with the Unreal Engine 3 technology in multiple genres."

Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games agrees, "We are especially gratified that Midway, a major publisher committed to developing high quality games for both next generation console and PC platforms, in numerous styles and genres, came to us seeking the right to use Unreal Engine 3 as a basis technology for its enterprise."

To read the press release in its entirety, click here.

The guys over at GameSpot have gotten their hands on three more videos of the GameCube version of Mortal Kombat: Deception. Two of them are actually just updated versions of the "Trading Kard bios" (made famous in the Kollector's Edition/Premium back in the USA, as well as the MKD Preview DVD in European countries), but now with footage from the GameCube version. The other video is a great looking trailer put together by Midway that features our favorite two bosses doing some killer combos! Thanks to MK Online forum member Humulis for the news!

The guys over at 1UP.COM have their MK: Deception preview as well, in addition to having their exclusive screenshots of the game. From the preview:

For the first time since Mortal Kombat sequels stopped having numbers attached to them, Deception on GameCube includes four-armed beast Goro and notorious boss Shao Kahn as playable characters. Even better, both characters are selectable right from the beginning, so players won't have to spend long amounts of time with the game before they get to try out the new additions.

Tech-wise, the game's graphics are more or less comparable to the other versions, and everything runs smoothly, so it doesn't look like GC players will have much of a negative tradeoff for the extra characters beyond the lack of online play, which will be no surprise to GC players.

Be sure to check out their exclusive screenshots, including some that depict Shao Kahn INSIDE one of the Dark Prison cells while Goro is on the outside: To read the preview in its entirety, click here.