Well, well, well... what do we have here? Midway is preparing to unleash the next installment of the Mortal Kombat series. If you've read my Dead or Alive 4 online features preview, you know that I have not been a fan of the MK series since it made the jump to the 3D. However MK7, dubbed Mortal Kombat Armageddon, will please old school and new school MK fans. No, I haven't played it yet (hands-on impressions are coming soon), but I don't have to because it's Midway and it's Mortal Kombat. I already know enough about the game to determine old and new fans have something to look forward to.

Midway's theme for Armageddon is finality. Everything about this title screams, "FINISH HIM!". Every character that has ever graced a Mortal Kombat game will be featured in Armageddon (although Motoro, Chameleon and Khameleon are currently unaccounted for). This is what fighting games fans thrive for. Not only will MK fans get a ton of playable characters, they'll have pretty much every character ever to grace an MK fighting game stuffed into Armageddon. I applaud Midway for this move.

While some fans and media wish to look at this as something new, this is not the first time Midway has gone this route. Mortal Kombat Trilogy for the original PlayStation and Nintendo 64 featured a similar roster of nearly every character to appear in the first three MK games. While I would love to see Trilogy packed with Armageddon (the original MK was packaged with Deception), I think I'd rather see the classic MK fighters head to Xbox Live Arcade.

Enough of wishing for something Midway is hopefully already planning. Fans of Mortal Kobmat: Deadly Alliance and MK Deception will find a lot of similarities in the new fighter. First and foremost, the game engine is based around the Deception fighting engine (which was based around the Deadly Alliance fighting engine), so fans of the last two MK games should feel right at home. There have also been a few gameplay changes that will add a taste of old school MK. The aerial combat system has been revamped to allow for air combat similar to Capcom fighters (but not really like old school MK air combos). When you knock your opponent into the air, you don't have to wait for them to drop to continue your combo. You can follow them up and continue your combo, even to the point of bouncing them off the ground and back up into the air for more brutal air combos.

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