UMK3 surfaces on XBL

On Friday evening, many gamers with little--or, more often, no--Friday-night plans logged onto Xbox Live Arcade. More than a few who cruised through the end of the alphabet on the service's catalog noticed a new game was available for download--a game whose release had not been publicized at all.

The game in question was Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, which was announced back in March. The classic Midway brawler was downloadable in both a free trial form and a full-fledged version for 800 Microsoft points ($10). According to the description, the game supported two- and four-person multiplayer on Xbox Live.

However, according to various forum messages, once downloaded, UMK3 was riddled with bugs. GameSpot editors who played the trial version of the game also noticed that it was clearly an unfinished build.

Indeed, within hours of its surfacing, UMK3 was unceremoniously pulled from Xbox Live Arcade, indicating its posting was a mistake. As for when it might return, Midway recently pegged a mid-November release date for the game.

[UPDATE 10/21] Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is back up on the Marketplace now...sort of. Some users are still reporting trouble finding and downloading the game, but Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb said on his blog Saturday morning that both UMK3 and the promised Tony Hawk's Project 8 demo are going up.

"If you don't see it yet, give it time as the team is actively working on this... meaning it may appear/dissapear/re-appear," Hryb wrote. "Both titles will be available as soon as they can address the issue."