G4's popular videogame preview and review show X-Play will be covering Midway's upcoming action/adventure game Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks on their newest episode premiering tonight! From the X-Play website:

This X-Play's jam-packed with reviews! We review three new games on the PS2: Batman Begins, Gundam Seed and Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks. Then we go portable and check out Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory for the DS and Spider-Man 2 on PSP.

The episode premieres tonight at 11 PM EDT/8 PM PDT. After the episode airs, we'll have more information on what was shown, including screenshots. To see more information on the episode (plus information on other showings if you miss tonight's episode), check the episode page by clicking here.

Our thanks to forum member fraysol for the heads-up on this upcoming episode of X-Play! Here are the pictures from the episode, as promised:

UPDATE: X-Play has made a text version of their preview available on the G4 website, giving a fairly thorough impression of the game. For example, from the article:

The action reminds us of a dumbed-down version of God of War. Like Sony’s slick hack-'n'-slash, it's really easy to pull off really cool moves from the get-go. Shaolin Monk’s combat is also similar in that chaining together attacks and stringing together huge combos makes the fighting really interesting. The big difference is that it’s much, much easier to create combos in Shaolin Monks. You're given much more time between hits, making combinations comparatively undemanding. That said, the game is several months away and the fighting system will surely go though some tweaks.

Expect plenty of standard grunts attacking in the early going, allowing you to learn the various controls. While the level design seems simple so far, it's still fun pulling of the different moves, discovering which attacks are our favorites, and learning how to use them to make combos. Though Kung Lao’s hat throw is one of our favorites, we're having more fun playing as Liu Kang, mostly because of all those silly sounds he makes.

Interspersed between clearing rooms of bad guys there's some simple platform-jumping to be done--all culminating with a boss fight with Baraka. This exciting encounter mixes melee, projectile, and dirty tactics (Baraka can light captives on fire, causing them to run like maniacs and accidentally burn you). Overall the build we've played is an entertaining ride that leaves us wanting more.

To read the preview in its entirety, click here.

Our thanks to chat member Three-11 for the heads-up on this update!

July 22, 2005 - UPDATE: Also, they had another MKSM trailer again on yesterday's episode of Cinematech, which was titled "Karate Chop". From the Cinematech website:

Check out the amazing gameplay in Mortal Kombat: Shoalin Monk, kill aliens in Area 51, and rock out to the Barber of Seville and everyone’s favorite Italian, Mario.

For more information on this episode, including the next airing date and time, click here. Here are some screen caps from that as well:

Note: While all the Fatalities were censored with cute little kitty cat heads for X-Play, there was no such censorship in Cinematech. Yet, both episodes had the same rating of TV14-V for violence. Also interesting to note, while on the subject of ratings, that X-Play gives the game an M rating while Cinematech has the Rating Pending logo. Our thanks go to MK Online forum/chat user DECEPTION for this segment of the update!