Mortal Kombat X releasing in April

NetherRealm's incredi-gory Mortal Kombat X is all about (slight) environmental interaction, picking different character 'variants' , and, yes, ripping your opponent's spine out or punching a hole through their chest or, I don't know, plucking out their eyeballs or something. It's all a bit brutal for me, but I appreciate the fast-paced combat, the lovely backgrounds, and their integration with the side-on scraps, as shown off in a recent PAX stream . If MK10 seems like your kind of fighting game, you'll be pleased to hear that it's not too far out from release, as a date of April 14th has just been announced.

Miserably, to play as Goro the four-armed dude—one of Mortal Kombat's more memorable characters and bosses— you'll need to pre-order the game. It's likely he'll turn up as regular DLC later, but it's still a rubbish situation for long-time fans of the character, who has featured in several games in the series before now, often in playable form, and always without buyers having to fork out additional cash.

Other returning characters include Raiden, Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Kano, all of which seem to be included in the main release.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.