The next release on Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade platform, Midway's Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was surprisingly—and mistakenly—released to the downloading sharks of North America yesterday, who, at the smell of fresh arcade blood, snagged the classic fighter. Classic? I know it's a stretch.

And just as quickly as it appeared, the download was gone. Fortunately, some of our quick witted readers were able to complete the 43MB download and sent us some pics for proof.

UMK3 will unfortunately boot players off XBL after a short period but reader Dan was able to play long enough to net some of the game's Acheivements.

The game was then re-released to Live around 1AM PST, but according to Major Nelson's blog and MS community manager Arne, users are still having a hard time finding UMK3, with the XBL team looking into the issue. I'm sure they'll get their beheaded ducks in a row soon enough and we'll all be enjoying ripping eachother limb from limb before Monday hits. Michael McWhertor

Arcade: Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

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