Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks is still a month away, but we got our hands on the demo and thought we would share. We were always taught that it was better to share than to play unreleased games and keep it to ourselves.

First off, lets have a little history lesson. Mortal Kombat was a fighting game that was a good alternative to Street Fighter. What made it stand out was its combo system, its different graphics, and oh yeah, the gore. MK made a couple treks into the 3D fighting arena with varying degrees of success. But they also made a couple of mediocre action titles, namely Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces. Well enough of the history lesson, you want to know if Shaolin Monks is any good. Well in a word, yes.

It took Midway a couple of tries, but they got the 3D fighting genre down with Mortal Kombat: Deception. And well I guess it took a couple of tries to get the action genre right, but now they have. Shaolin Monks has all the gore and speed you would expect from a MK game. But now it's in the form of an action game.

The version we played started off just after Shang Tsung's defeat. Raiden tells Kung Lao and Lui Kang that even though the defeated the evil sorcerer they now need to escape his island before it sinks or falls apart or something like that. Well basically you fight your way out stating at Goro's lair. You have your quick punch, your hard punch, a throw and your jump to start off with. You can also play single or co-op.

The levels were split up into small areas with a couple various beasts attacking you at once. The good news is you can quickly attack in all directions so it's not a big deal if you get surrounded. After a little bit you get your character's signature moves which you preform by holding the R button and pressing an attack button. Then you get your fatalities. To use your fatalities you need to fill up the fatality meter by preforming combos. Then once you're full you press the appropriate button and input the fatal sequence to end your enemy's worthless life.

The graphics are very good. The textures are realistic, and the world has a lived-in feel. My major gripe about the game is that there is a load time in-between each individual area. But it's the trade off to keep the graphics on par with Mortal Kombat: Deception's.

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks is coming along nicely, and is already pretty fun. Hopefully the final version has enough game, and extras, to keep us playing, and remember, watch out for the flaming monks.