Apparently not too long ago, some guy on the IGN boards started a rumor about a Mortal Kombat vs. DC Comics fighting game in the works, citing an “inside source” as his feed. People dismissed it as false, and moved on about their business.

Now it seems the rumor is getting more hype. TRMK.org, one of the more prominent and informed MK sites on the net, has a recent article that analyzes the rumor a bit more.

As incredulous as this rumor has sounded ever since it first made the rounds more than ten years ago, TRMK has confirmed from our own sources that the next Mortal Kombat game for the current generation of consoles – Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 – will indeed be a “Versus” style game.

While we were unable to confirm the DC Comics angle proposed by the IGN Boards message, we do know that the game will feature another well-known established intellectual property. It seems unlikely that the DC Comics license will appear along side a franchise known for its gruesome fatalities; however, the MK Team did state that they were intent on “reinventing everything from the ground up” in order to “wipe the slate clean”. Therefore, the idea that the game will not feature fatalities in the traditional Mortal Kombat style is not as far fetched as it initially sounds.

The original rumor on the IGN boards had been picked up by a user of MKOnline forums, which enticed the guys of TRMK.org to do their own digging, and it seems they got a little more than just hearsay. It seems everyone from the staff of the fansites to the fans themselves are skeptical, and with good reason. Mortal Kombat became famous for it’s gruesome Fatalities and gobs of bloodshed and violence, and has not deviated from that road since it’s conception. With DC, despite being darker, leaning more towards the anti-violence side of things, it just seem farfetched to believe this 100%.

Not alot of DC fans would be too keen on seeing Batman having his spine ripped out, or Green Lantern having his head eaten off. On the other side, MK fans would not want to see Scorpion *not* impaling someone with his spear, or Sub-Zero *not* freezing his enemy and smashing them to bits. But, I guess we’ll see.

Fileplanet has taken it upon themselves to offer up the demo release for Clive Barker’s survival horror game, Jericho. The actual game itself won’t release until November 2nd, but at least those of us who have been eying this little gem will get a taste of the gameplay.

For those who aren’t familiar with the title, the game takes place in an apocalyptic setting that seems to be a hybrid of Silent Hill and Gears of War. Your a member of the Jericho Squad, that’s been sent to cull the uprising of the “Firstborn” – grotesque and twisted creatures from the Abyss who were banished from earth by God after he feared his creations. The members of Jericho Squad are sent in with heavy artillery, as well as each one packing their own special supernatural talent, making freak killing that much more fun.

Check out the link HERE

If it’s Clive Barker, is has to be good.

Quick post before the day is out. A new trailer for Devil May Cry 4 has been released, featuring some rather awesome gameplay and cutscenes staring everyone’s favorite Devil Hunter, Dante – as well as newcomer Nero. From what can be gathered, this is a shorter version of a full trailer to be released at a later date. If this is just a smidgen of what we’re going to be seeing in the future, it can’t come soon enough.

After the rather laughable (literally) showing that was Land of the Dead, it’s not hard to believe that one of zombie master George Romero’s “Dead” flicks would be passed by the wayside. Although, this very well could have been the intention.

The new title, Diary of the Dead, is an independent member of the Dead series family, rather than it’s money-backed theatrically released siblings that was first released at the Toronto International Film Festival this past Saturday. The plot, which is said to be “non-realistic view of things” starts with students beginning to film a horror movie in the wilderness at the same time as the events of Night of the Living Dead, only to be attacked by zombies. Romero says that he aimed to have it be different from The Blair Witch Project in that it will give a different perspective of what happened that particular night other than that of the boarded-up farm house in the first movie.

Romero has stated that this movie will not in fact be the fifth installment to his series, but more of a side-story – “a rejigging of the myth” he quotes. Beyond it’s debut at the film festival, no other releases have been mentioned.

Diary of the Dead @ MySpace

Building upon this post from a few months ago, it would appear that the traveling orchestral videogame concert known as Video Games Live has seen fit to release a full album of their greatest performances from various past shows. “Video Games Live: Greatest Hits – Volume One” will feature various medleys of well-known tunes from gaming series such as Zelda, Sonic, Mario, Halo and many others, all done in their usual orchestral setting. The album was created by tour head Tommy Tallarico, along with Jack Wall and features the talents of Slovak National Orchestra as well as the Crouch End Chorus and the Martin “The Video Game Pianist” Leung.

Seeing as how this is “Volume One”, it’s only fair to assume that other volumes with additional music will be included in the future. They certainly have enough material to work with. The album will see a release date of October 15th and will more than likely be available on the VGL website.

As we encroach closer to the October season, you can already notice a few things in the air that signals the coming of the macabre time of the year: numerous Halloween stores popping up at local malls; candy be piled onto shelves at local WalMart and Target stores; and talk of horror movies being remade and receiving long-awaited sequels.

The latter is the cause with Rob Zombie’s remake of the Horror cult classic, Halloween. For quite a while, it was the talk of the horror culture underground, and the most anticipated remake of the genre. Zombie has a small reputation for creating twisted sounds, and equally twisted screenplays, as can be evidenced by his take on “The Devil’s Rejects“. However, it seems criticism is being thrown on heavy in the cause of his touching upon the Halloween series. Zombie takes the original story of Michael Myers, and gives light to the serial killer’s background and childhood, and a look into what made him into the resurrecting homicidal maniac we all know today. Apparently some were not too thrilled with this interpretation of how the story show look, however. I’ve heard some rather good thing from people who have gone to see this flick thus far, but the higher-ups of the horror circuit seem to look down upon the telling of this tale – citing it as “failing because of one simple reason- it’s not scary“, as put by the review of the film on Creature Corner. This seems to be an experience that will be determined on a person-by-person basis. Your either like it, or you don’t.

In the way of sequels, beyond the atrocity that will be released in the form of “Resident Evil: Extinction”, it would seem a second installment of another cult classic in the horror genre is in the works as we speak – The Lost Boys. Twenty years after the first movie hit the screens, and introduced a while new level of modern vampire films, it seems that many of the cast from the original movie are finally coming together for a sequel. Both Corey Feldman and Corey Heim are slated for return, though Sci-Fi reports Heim is having immigration problems that are holding up his arrival on the Canadian set of the proposed sequel film. It would also seem that Keifer Sutherland’s half-brother Angus is ironically being slated as the movie villain role. Whether or not this all hopes to be a grand reunion, or a hopeless flop will as of yet remain to be seen. Either way, it should prove amusing.

August has proved to be quite good to survival horror fans. With new information being leaked on a near-constant basis for games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill, and even some not-so-streamlined info, it’s no surprise that fans of the genre are biting their nails as to any visuals released. Thankfully, those seem to be in steady supply as well.
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Fast on the heels of Dracula X Chronicles, that has a scheduled release date of November 13th, series producer Koji Igarashi seems to feel the need to pump out even more Castlevania for fans to digest in the coming months. Two new games have been announced as in production, one for the Nintendo DS, and another exclusive to cellphone gaming.

Castlevania: Order of Shadows has been announced to be a cellphone-exclusive title to the series and will be released in September to most of the major service providers, including AT&T and Verizon. The game is to be a side-story in the series, and will feature the protagonist stylings of Desmond Belmont, and his sisters Zoe and Delores. (where they though these would be good names for Belmont’s is anyone’s guess….narcotics may have been involved) One can only attribute this Konami’s sudden change from consoles and handhelds to cellphone-exclusive gaming to other games of it’s ilk, such as God of War: Betrayal. Whether or not this game will be inducted into the series storyline as canon has yet to be determined.

The other Castlevania game in production has been confirmed by Iga as being again for the DS handheld system, and promises it “will not be a remake like Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles and will be all new“. Any other information as of right now is shoddy at best, and any other solid leads as to what kind of game this will be will most likely be unveiled at Konami’s Spring Gamer’s Day. So, we have a good deal of time before anything substantial is released.

A final note is Iga’s mentioning of a future Castlevania title being released for the Xbox 360, and possibly the PS3 (if it’s sales pick up). Nothing other than this teaser has been mentioned, and won’t probably until after the release of the future DS game. We all can only hope that this long-awaited jump into the next-gen consoles means either a high-quality 3D game in planning, or a grandscale 2D game that would hopefully be the next Symphony of the Night. One can only dream.