To ease your mind, you should return your refurbished console and pay the extra fifty dollars to get a brand new one. To patch your firmware, first and foremost, you'd go to the Settings portions of the XBM and scroll up; it'll be the first option. Unless you have your information on a CD, Flash drive or SD card, you'll get the update from the net. Accept the terms of use and let it do it's thing - you're console wil restart when it is complete. To patch your games, simply go to the game portion of the XMB and while you're connected to the PlayStation Network, run the game. If there is a patch available, you'll be greeted by a familiar black screen telling you, "Hey dude, Version 1.04 is avaiable. Download me." Don't be afraid to actually play with your system. The PS3 is a powerful system and you cannot hurt the system itself by exploring it. Perhaps your TV, but not the system.

Be sure to pick up ALL of your cables at: http://www.monoprice.com/

Cheap cables, high quality. Spend less money on HDMI and more money building up your blu-ray and PS3 libraries.

This was the proverbial 'nail in the coffin' for the MK series. This game is such buttom-mashing garbage... Ugh. If you like Mortal Kombat, please keep away from it. Midway is at its' last stand, trying to milk out the last few bucks it can of a dying franchise.

Do us a favor Midway, release a later version of UMK3 the PS3 and please, please such a glorious franchise die in peace.

The problem with this game is that the demo does the game no justice at all. After being totally satisfied with the demo, I went out and splurged on the full game. WELL worth the dough if you can spare it. As far as replayability goes, it's a bit lacking but the story and the ore gameplay itself is very captivating, albeit a little slow to grasp at first.

Bottom line, download the demo. Play the demo. If you enjoy the demo, buy the real game. It's leaps and bounds better.