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.

The folks over at GameSpot have done it again – this time with a whopping 21 new images of Goro and Kahn from the GameCube version of Mortal Kombat: Deception! In addition to the GameCube select screen, we also have confirmation that the bosses will have Fatalities! Click here to check them all out, or you can click the thumbnails above to see the corresponding image. Thanks to MK Online forum/chat user danas for the tip on this update!

Looks like the guys at IGN have had a chance to sit down and play the new Mortal Kombat TV Games Unit from Jakks Pacific. From their review:

Mortal Kombat literally shoves the graphics, sound, gameplay, and violent nature of the original title into a self-contained controller that cleverly mimics the classic Mortal Kombat arcade cabinet. The device utilizes thumb-pad and button layout that's in line with the arcade unit's panel, right down to the button colors and text directions labeling the controls. The side panels lack the cheesy "Johnny Cage" dragon artwork, quite possibly a legal issue Jakks may have wanted to avoid. It still would have been cool to have them on there, if only to liven up the bland red sides just begging for a sticker.

Go here for the rest of the review, along with some screenshots of this cool little handheld version of the original Mortal Kombat! Also be sure to check out the media page, complete with 23 new images and 3 new movies here.

Special thanks to forum/chatroom user DECEPTION for the heads up!