Xbox and PS2 Mortal Kombat: Deception golden

Midway' s venerable slaughter-palooza has been sent to the factory and it set to be unleashed October 4.

Months after it revealed the franchise wasn' t finished, Midway has announced that Mortal Kombat: Deception has gone gold for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Both versions of the M-rated fighting game are on schedule to ship on October 4, with a GameCube version slated for a January 2005 release.

The latest installment in the long-running fighting series, Mortal Kombat: Deception will feature 24 playable characters. Classic personalities like Scorpion, Mileena, Baraka, and Sub-Zero will be immediately available, while several new kombatants will be unlockable as the game progresses.

Like Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Deception will be fully 3D, and will feature the gut-busting, skull-bursting violence that are the series' trademark. It will offer several other modes of play besides the traditional arcade-style fights to the death, including the strategy-themed " chess kombat" and " konquest," a free-roaming, RPG-style adventure.

GameSpot recently kicked around a near-final build of Mortal Kombat: Deception; read our hands-on to learn more.

By Tor Thorsen -- GameSpot

Ahh, good ' ol Mortal Kombat. A few years ago the franchise looked doomed but Deadly Alliance came along and saved it. I snapped it up and was pleasantly surprised with it. While I do intend on picking up Deception I' m afraid it' ll have to wait a little as I' m saving my cash for Fable, GTA:SA and others.

The Death Traps sound like fun though I wonder if they are too hard to bother with. Having multiple fatalities is good too so you can mix in a bit of variety dealing death this time. I hope the game is a bit more coherent with the story. Konquest mode sounds very intriguing. And damnit, I want Scorpion to be a fully fledged bad guy again, but to *win*.

Any sign of Lui Kang? (I know he’s supposedly dead but so was Kano and he made a come-back.)

I can' t get my head around Kombat Chess or Puzzle Kombat. It' s too odd for me. lol. Guess I' ll have to play it to understand it.