Mortal Kombat

News Roundup •••• While everyone crowds around your local Redbox today trying to catch up on all those Oscar winners they never saw, you can grab a free game rental from it until Thursday. [ USA Today ] •••• Remember that proposed “violent video game tax” in Oklahoma? Done-zo. [ Geekosystem ] •••• A straw poll at the NBA All-Star game confirms about 85% of pro ballers are gamers. This group includes Dwight Howard, who would like to blow you up in “Call of Duty” so badly that he gave out his gamertag.

News Roundup •••• Holy hell (literally), "Diablo III" finally has a release date! May 15, kids. [ Blizzard ] •••• EA Sports' football titles are both in the crowd-sourcing spirit this year. Cam Newton is leading the pack for the "Madden NFL 13" vote, and eight Heisman-winning legends are vying to share the cover of "NCAA Football 13" with RG3. It is at this juncture Game Cache would like to officially endorse Ben Roethlisberger ("Madden" curse, ya'll)

On ''Mortal Monday,'' the day the Nintendo and Game Boy versions of Mortal Kombat hit the stores, a friend and I found ourselves in a seemingly endless line at The Good Guys electronics store. We saw children who should have been in school lay down $150 for the right to play Mortal Kombat on their portable Game Boys. We beheld business men and women who should have been at work satiating their urge to play the game.This amazing display of consumer solidarity made me feel a little left out. I was just there because my friend wanted to buy some blank tapes for her answering machine.

News Roundup •••• While everyone crowds around your local Redbox today trying to catch up on all those Oscar winners they never saw, you can grab a free game rental from it until Thursday. [ USA Today ] •••• Remember that proposed “violent video game tax” in Oklahoma? Done-zo. [ Geekosystem ] •••• A straw poll at the NBA All-Star game confirms about 85% of pro ballers are gamers. This group includes Dwight Howard, who would like to blow you up in “Call of Duty” so badly that he gave out his gamertag.

MORTAL KOMBATOriginal Motion Picture Soundtrack (TVT 6110)Capturing the sound of a video game in a pop song is easy; just add a few sound effects, and you're there. Capturing the feel of a video game -- the robotic relentlessness of the attackers, the adrenalin-pumping buzz of the action -- is a different level of challenge. Yet somehow, the soundtrack to "Mortal Kombat" manages to generate a sound with all the pulse-racing excitement and play-it-again addictiveness of a good arcade game.

Geof LeBaron is a pumped mass of other-worldly flesh packed into a yellow fighting suit. His tendons throb, his endorphins fly and his fists are of fury. And it cost him only 50cents.For the afternoon crowd at Tilt arcade in the Laguna Hills (Calif.) Mall, it's enough to make adrenal glands sit up and scream. Mr. LeBaron has taken Scorpion, his video-game identity du jour, through level after level of stocky opponents, spitting fire and burning bones. It's a good 15 minutes before Reptile, a computer-controlled opponent, rips off his head with his tongue.

Today is Mortal Monday, and for Daniel Loeb, gore will be very, very good.That's because today's the day Mortal Kombat, the ultra-violent home video game that is expected to become the hottest-selling item in the industry, goes on sale.At Mr. Loeb's store and thousands of other video outlets across the country, people will be lining up to land a copy of the much-hyped game that lets them experience the thrill of tearing off the heads, ripping out the still-beating hearts and holding aloft the bloody spines of their defeated adversaries.

So here's J. C. Herz hovering over an espresso at Cybersmith, Harvard Square's semi-elite digital cafe. And while she's trying to be, you know, polite -- after all, she's here to sign copies of her new book -- she wants you to know that she's really an 1980s video arcade kinda gal. Like: linoleum on the floor, sensory overload, skanky teen-agers in Van Halen T-shirts."

Mortal Kombat is an old chestnut for gamers, a series that was controversial for its over-the-top violence in its day (the early 1990s), but now seems quaint next to a new generation of blood-'n'-guts game play. Now, Midway Home Entertainment updates the franchise with Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, a nimble fighting game that improves upon MK and its sequels with a deeper fighting system, improved graphics and a multitude of extras to discover and unlock using "kurrency" earned in the game.

Here's a look at new titles that offer gamers everything from fights to play-along tunes to a shot at world domination. Mortal Kombat: Deception Bloody bouts and ultraviolent finishing moves make Midway's fighting game the target of rancor among parents and politicians. But compared with the gritty realism in many violent games, Mortal Kombat: Deception, the sixth in the series, is almost cartoonish. Impaled warriors and exploding body parts make this game a big no-no for youngsters, but it has turned into more than just a gore fest.

Here's a look at new titles that offer gamers everything from fights to play-along tunes to a shot at world domination. Mortal Kombat: Deception Bloody bouts and ultraviolent finishing moves make Midway's fighting game the target of rancor among parents and politicians. But compared with the gritty realism in many violent games, Mortal Kombat: Deception, the sixth in the series, is almost cartoonish. Impaled warriors and exploding body parts make this game a big no-no for youngsters, but it has turned into more than just a gore fest.

Mortal Kombat is an old chestnut for gamers, a series that was controversial for its over-the-top violence in its day (the early 1990s), but now seems quaint next to a new generation of blood-'n'-guts game play. Now, Midway Home Entertainment updates the franchise with Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, a nimble fighting game that improves upon MK and its sequels with a deeper fighting system, improved graphics and a multitude of extras to discover and unlock using "kurrency" earned in the game.

So here's J. C. Herz hovering over an espresso at Cybersmith, Harvard Square's semi-elite digital cafe. And while she's trying to be, you know, polite -- after all, she's here to sign copies of her new book -- she wants you to know that she's really an 1980s video arcade kinda gal. Like: linoleum on the floor, sensory overload, skanky teen-agers in Van Halen T-shirts."

MORTAL KOMBATOriginal Motion Picture Soundtrack (TVT 6110)Capturing the sound of a video game in a pop song is easy; just add a few sound effects, and you're there. Capturing the feel of a video game -- the robotic relentlessness of the attackers, the adrenalin-pumping buzz of the action -- is a different level of challenge. Yet somehow, the soundtrack to "Mortal Kombat" manages to generate a sound with all the pulse-racing excitement and play-it-again addictiveness of a good arcade game.

IT LOOKS like the Producers Club of Maryland has hit a home run. This group of local film aficionados was organized to help bring production companies to Maryland for film shoots.As part of that effort, the group sponsored a fund-raising event at the Baltimore Museum of Art last month. The featured attraction: a preview showing of the grand prize winner from the Sundance Film Festival, "The Brothers McMullen."After the film was shown, writer-director-actor Edward Burns and co-star Maxine Bahns answered questions about this low, low-budget movie.

"Mortal Kombat" is probably the best film ever derived from a video game, but that's a pretty small pea patch of which to be the prince.A better question might be, does the project transcend its origin and become an actual movie? Do you care about its characters? Has your brain been engaged or merely your optic nerves? That's a much harder test, and the movie doesn't quite pass it."Mortal Kombat" is fun in a mindless, brain-eating way. It may actually suck out a few of your IQ points; since I've lost so many in multiplexes over the years, how could they tell?

"Mortal Kombat" is probably the best film ever derived from a video game, but that's a pretty small pea patch of which to be the prince.A better question might be, does the project transcend its origin and become an actual movie? Do you care about its characters? Has your brain been engaged or merely your optic nerves? That's a much harder test, and the movie doesn't quite pass it."Mortal Kombat" is fun in a mindless, brain-eating way. It may actually suck out a few of your IQ points; since I've lost so many in multiplexes over the years, how could they tell?

Through the one-way glass, you can see the young Asian agent writhing in pain. Still, she refuses to talk. You are not a violent person. But you know what you have to do.You are, after all, a CIA recruit who has discovered a plot to assassinate the U.S. president. And this is, after all, only a game -- one that incorporates the best that digital technology has to offer. You turn up the voltage. She screams.So goes the interactive revolution."The Great Game" is one of a new crop of video games that give players control over ever more realistic -- and violent -- fantasy worlds.

The brutally competitive world of children's entertainment is no fairy tale. Just ask the owners of the Enchanted Forest, the 40-year-old Ellicott City amusement park that failed to reopen Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of its summer season.In an era when amusement parks tout "thrill-packed joy rides," it isn't easy to stay ahead of the curve. Establishments such as Chuck E. Cheese and Discovery Zone have also jumped into the amusement market to provide an array of high-energy rides and games.