Mortal Kombat Message Board older than one year ago

It's probably little surprise to you to learn that NetherRealm plans to release Skarlet, the stab-happy new female ninja who takes Mortal Kombat character design to the next logical step of evolution by tossing around gobs of blood like Rip Taylor tosses confetti, on June 21st. After all, she's been known about for a while, and it's been a couple of weeks since we got new MK DLC. Finally, a new kombatant shall appear!

However, that's not really the news. The news, courtesy of IGN, is that more characters have been confirmed to follow. Kenshi, the blind ninja that everyone was pretty sure would be the next to arrive after Skarlet, will, in fact, be the next to arrive after Skarlet.

More interestingly, Rain, the purple, Prince-inspired ninja who has been kicking around since Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 will follow Kenshi. Ed Boon had been teasing Rain for months on Twitter, and now it seems he and the team plan to make good on all that teasing. Oh Ed, you teasing teaser, you.

Even more interesting than any of that is the news that a fourth kombatant will follow Rain, though who that will be is currently a mystery. Anyone want to start bandying guesses as to who it'll be? Shinnok? Meat? Literally anyone else? Please?

For those wondering how all these additional characters will impact elements like online play and compatibility, NetherRealm has a plan. With each DLC character release, the studio will release a new "compatibility pack," which allows players with the DLC to hook up online against those who don't, and vice versa. These packs are free, and will also come with some new character skins. The first one, which will drop alongside Skarlet, includes new UMK 3-inspired skins for both Cyrax and Sektor. Again, you get these through the compatibility pack, so they're free, regardless as to whether you buy Skarlet or not.

I know Jeff managed to get his hands-on a playable version of Skarlet at E3, but he ran off to go interview Ed Boon before I could ask him how she handled. Don't blame him, though. It's important we maintain our "Minimum of three Ed Boon interviews per year" quota around here. I'm sure if you ask him real nicely, he'll tell you if she was any good or not.

If you're anything like the men of Giant Bomb, collecting all those scattered pre-order bonus costumes for Mortal Kombat was, to you, a calling second to none. Jeff and Ryan, in particular, got into a particularly heated competition to try and earn my unused Scorpion code. Jeff frequently tried to entice me with promises of free shitty PSP RPGs that happened to be sitting on his desk. Ryan took me to a Go! Team show. I think we know who won out on that one--though to be truthful, I ended up keeping the code for myself. Ain't I a stinker?

All that bartering and begging ultimately was pointless in the end, as series honcho Ed Boon let it be known via his Twitter feed yesterday that the first DLC pack for MK would be a collec--erm, sorry, kollection of all seven klassic kostumes--for Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile, Ermac, Jade, Mileena, and Kitana--and the accompanying klassic fatalities--for Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and Reptile--would be bundled together into a single DLC pack. No pricing or release date has been announced for the pack just yet, though a trailer for the DLC is expected to drop tomorrow.

Boon likes to tease his Twitter followers with questions about what charact--okay, fine, "kharacters" fans would like to see as future DLC. Blind fighter Kenshi and a new female character named Skarlet are still slated to be the first ones released--with Skarlet apparently coming first--but Boon promises many more waves of additional kontent down the road. So don't worry if you're holding out for an updated version of Rain to fill out the last remaining color of the ninja rainbow, or just really want to play as Meat for some reason. Your day may yet come.

During TNT, we had to enable the two-day temporary access to Mortal Kombat's multiplayer. With the PlayStation Store still down, if you didn't register your "Kombat Pass" prior to the great PSN crash of 2011, you're screwed.

Fortunately, Warner Bros. and NetherRealm Studios have heard your cries. The companies announced on Facebook that the Kombat Pass is being temporarily waived.

"Due to the recent PSN outage," reads the statement, at nearly celebratory likes, "Mortal Kombat for PS3 will now be playable online without need for the Kombat Pass. This is a temporary solution that will only be available while Playstation Store is unavailable. Once PlayStation Store is back up, users will be able to enter the Kombat Pass code included with Mortal Kombat or purchase a Kombat Pass for $9.99."

Sony's told developers the PlayStation Store should be back next week, so it's rather nice of everyone involved with Mortal Kombat to cut PlayStation players a break while Sony irons out the last kinks.

I'd also like to point out the incredible restraint it took to not drop random k's around this article.

Even though PlayStation Network is back, issues remain. Namely, PlayStation Store remains offline. Didn't download your multiplayer access pass for Mortal Kombat before PSN went down? You're out of luck. Already blew through every case in L.A. Noire and looking for more? Sorry.

I have good news to report, though.

PlayStation Store returns next week, with multiple updates, just as promised. The information comes from a letter Sony is sending its content partners--and then passed onto me.

"We thank you for your patience as we work to resume service of the PlayStation Store," reads the letter. "In anticipation of the store's reactivation, we have a tentative publish schedule we would like to share with you as it affects content that had been originally scheduled for release [when PSN was down]."

Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.

The letter also details the schedule for continuous updates: May 24, May 27, May 31 and June 3. It's unclear whether the multiple updates will continue past June 3.

As of next week, PlayStation Store will have been down for a month. That's four weeks worth of scheduled content, promotions, and sales that never appeared. There's plenty for Sony to catch up on.

Salesality.

Is that word? Did it have to be done? No.

But what it represents is true: Mortal Kombat dominated the charts in April, selling 900,000 copies across both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, according to the latest data released by the NPD Group. Portal 2, which also had a PC and Mac release, came up a close second, but sales data wasn't released. Less than 900K, obviously!

SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals did not chart in the top ten in April, but that's because NPD did not combine the sales of the regular $59.99 game and the more expensive PlayStation Move bundle. Had the two numbers been combined, NPD noted, SOCOM 4 would have broken into the top ten list.

Here are the top ten games for the month:

In terms of hardware, Microsoft came out on top, pushing 297,000 units. Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PSP all say year-over-year sales improvements from April 2010, while Nintendo's Wii did not. An upcoming price drive to $150, however, should spur Wii into more hands, as Nintendo prepares to transition hardware.

It'll be a good day to die online this summer, when Warner Bros. delivers the Mortal Kombat Arcade Collection for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC. It's a collection in the truest sense, too, bundling Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

The best part? It's only $9.99.

No, wait, the bestest part? All three will feature online play and leaderboards.

Yes, that's a tear running down my face.

It'll be a good day to die online this summer, when Warner Bros. delivers the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC. It's a collection in the truest sense, too, bundling Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

The best part? It's only $9.99.

No, wait, the bestest part? All three will feature online play and leaderboards.

Yes, that's a tear running down my face.