In kinder, gentler times, children would gather each and every Easter Sunday, enjoying the simple pleasures of an annual hunt for chocolate eggs. These days, you probably more readily identify the tradition of "Easter Eggs" by pop culture's appropriation of hidden extras, and nestled nuggets of reference.

Mortal Kombat has made legendary use of easter eggs, milking a rich canon for hints and allusions, sometimes going so far as to hide kombatants themselves, deep within the game. At the beginning of the week, we talked about the impossible characters who existed in rumor and foolery [full story], but this Easter, the Mortal Kombat Online staff have crammed The Nexus to pick our Top 10 Secret Kharacters!

With the release of Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict today, the official site has been updated with the bios for all the characters from this game - including, of course, Raiden from Mortal Kombat! Here it is:

Name: Raiden
Race: Elder God
Sex: Male
Age: Ancient
Birthplace: Unknown
Starting Weapons: Lightning Bolts, Thunder Staff
Adrenaline Abilities: Teleport, Stun Trap, Heal, Warrior Spirit
Data: As an Elder God, Raiden has been cursed with seeing the devestation to come. When the Gods stood firm on their decision not to interfere in the ways of mortals, Raiden pleaded with them to take action, but they refused. Disgusted, he relinquished his immortal status to travel amongst the realms, gathering the support of the greatest warriors against the coming storm. And there is no better place to recruit the champions of the galaxy then the Liandri Tournament.

Thanks go to MK Online chat/forum member DECEPTION for this update!

Midway sent out a press release this morning announcing that they have shipped their most recent game to stores, Unreal Championship 2! Though not a Mortal Kombat game, the game is notable to MK fans because of the well-known fact that one of the unlockable characters in the game is the popular thunder god Raiden! From the press release:

"Midway, along with the millions of people involved in the Unreal community around the world, is extremely excited about the release of Unreal Championship 2," said Steve Allison, chief marketing officer, Midway. "Our recently formed relationship with Epic Games, Inc. is one that we feel extremely thrilled about, both for Unreal Championship 2 and for future Unreal products, and we are confident that gamers will be extremely enthusiastic about our first title together. Unreal Championship 2 has been given the time over its development process to be refined to its core and, as we hope people will soon see, the outcome is one of the best-looking Xbox games on the market and one of, if not the greatest Xbox Live title ever."

Unreal Championship 2 should be hitting retail shelves within the next couple of days.

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

Update – the folks at GameSpot posted a video review of the game. To see the video review, click here. The video is available free as a free stream to all, or even as a free download as a GameSpot Basic member. Overall, they give the game a 9.4 out of 10, so it's definitely a game worth checking out! Thanks to MK Online forum/chat member DECEPTION for the info on the video review!

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

The folks over at GameSpot have acquired and posted some more screenshots from Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict. To check out the rest of the screenshots, click here.

There's also some videos worth checking out. GamePlay Footage 14 features Raiden actually doing a FATALITY. The new Developer Interview video features Epic Games President Mike Capps briefly discussing what it's like working with Midway and his praise for the Mortal Kombat series, as well as how well Raiden fits in to UC2's environment. To check out all the videos for this game, click here. As always, streaming videos are free for all, to download is also free, albeit as a GameSpot Basic member. Thanks to MK Online forum/chat member DECEPTION for the tip on this update!

Midway Games has released a render from their upcoming release of Epic Games's upcoming X-Box game Unreal Championship 2! This render is of particular interest to MK fans as it includes everyone's favorite thunder god, Raiden! As can be seen in the render (and in previous UC2 media), Raiden retains his pre-Deception appearance; this is obviously the "good" Raiden as opposed to the dark one.



To see the image in a smaller file-size (more appropriate for dial-up users), click here. To see the full 2 MB render, click here

Our thanks to forum member kubaidragon for this heads-up, and to Mortal Kombat Guides who first broke this story!