Well, I bought the mag yesterday and... those were 12 bucks well spent!!!!!!!!!!

I submit a news lead to the MKO guys. Here's the info:

Hi there! I live in Montreal Canada and I recently picked up an Xbox magazine. It features Scorpion with his flaming sword on the cover. The plastic bag of the mag has a little stamp that reads “04JN” so I guess it’s 6 months old. It consists of a 3 page article and a 1 page interview with Boon. Nothing new is really told here but I found some excerpts to be interesting. Here they are:

“Every character has 2 fatalities on top of that you also have the pit fatalities, as well as brand new arena deathtraps that can bring an impromptu end to a fight.”

“The idea is that depending on the arena and its contents your fighting technique should change dramatically there are 17 environments in total and all feature some kind of negative and positive attribute that can be used by your character whether it’s weapons, deathtraps or whatever. The idea being that you shouldn’t get the same fight twice.”

“There are 24 (characters) in total. This includes 6 from DA, 6 classics, 6 regulars and 6 newbies. Names we’ve spotted so far are Ermac, Scorpion, Kenshi, Sindel, Sub Zero, Baraka, Noob Saibot, Tanya, Nightwolf, Reptile, Raiden and the game boss The Dragon King. Most of the characters are unlocked by playing the completely revised Konquest mode It’s this game mode that where you’ll also unlock all of the characters, hidden costumes, new arenas, fancy weapons, new moves and so on. The developer was a little bit miffed at how easy gamers found all of the ‘Koffins’ in DA and, as a result, has decided to make all the goodies rock-hard to find this time round for the more obscure items this might mean being in the right place, on the right day, in the right year at exactly the right time.”

I scanned the cover of the magazine and one page with screenshots. One of them features Noob Saibot with an outfit that hasn’t been published (as far as I know). Is his MK4/Gold look, which can prove that the rumors of characters having old costumes might be true.
Also, it seems Reptile and the Dragon King are two separates characters. And there is the hint at the fact that perhaps in every arena you can finish a fight through the use of a deathtrap or a pit fatality. Hope this information offers something new and/or interesting to all of us while we await the release of such a kool game.

Also there's a really nice pic of Mileena and Subzero fighting in the arena which has a sword inside a green crystal. I scanned it to show you guys how gigantic the arenas will be (or at least some of them).
Finally, there is a really cool pic of Sindel kicking Li Mei (both in their alternate outfifts) while in the background a torrent of blood and meat falls into some kind of processor. I think Sindel fans would want to see this one. She looks so cool. I loooooove the freakin' crown... LOVE IT!!!! I'm sure most of you will want to see the Noob Saibot pic. Just PM with your e-mail and request (whether u wanna see the cover, Noob or the gigantic proportion of the arena).

For Montrealers... go to the Berri-Uquam metro station and go to the store called "Relay". The mag comes with a mini-book guide of "Hitman contracts"