ame Informer Online's own Billy Berghammer got a chance to sit down with Mortal Kombat guru Ed Boon and Producer John Podlasek and grilled them regarding their upcoming fighter. Here's the entire interview:
Billy Berghammer: What can you tell us about the conversion of bringing Mortal Kombat back to Midway Arcade Treasures? What’s been cool about bringing them back?
Ed Boon: Well, it’s really weird. You look at the title and it’s called Arcade Treasures and that implies “old school” video game type things and that’s what I thought of, games like Defender and Robotron and all that stuff from when I first joined the company. So to me, it’s more a reminder of how long I’ve been here and it’s something that I worked on like 12 years ago and it’s considered “old school” and I guess it’s considered “old school.” A lot of people were in junior high when those games came out so they’ve graduated from college already.
BB: Is it scary?
EB: Yeah, it’s totally scary! One of these days Deception is going to be perceived as an “old school” game, but I’ll be long dead by then.
BB: Did you ever envision years ago that one day that the games that you made would become “arcade treasures?”
EB: No, no. I thought they were state of the art at the time, with digitized graphics and all, but now it’s like how Pac-Man was 10 years ago.
BB: The games that you’re bringing to Treasures, are they going to be straight ports from the consoles or are they going to be the original arcade games?
EB: I believe that they’re the original arcade versions, I mean exactly the same versions, like emulating or MAME.
BB: So, you’re not adding anything like extra features or anything?
EB: No. As tempting as it is, we’re kind of busy with the latest version of the game (laughs).
BB: Including the first three MK games, do you have a personal favorite?
EB: You know what, I think the first one is the most nostalgic for me, just because it didn’t have the name before it and the second one is generally conceived to be the “best one,” certainly out of the 2D Mortal Kombat games. The third, to me, is the most fun to play. Once we added the run button it opened it up and I can’t play the first two anymore because my thumb keeps hitting the control panel and waiting for the run button and when I don’t see it I’m like “oh, I have to walk all the way over to you and start kicking you.” It’s a different play mechanic.
BB: If Mortal Kombat: Deception is a gamer’s first taste of the series, why do you think it’s important for them to go back and play the earlier versions?
EB: Just to see how dramatic of a change the game has made. To me, back in the day is was just us and Street Fighter. We were the two games beating each other up. Since then, most of the 2D games have sort of drifted away, like the Samurai Shodown’s and of the other games are sort of like memories. But, with 2.8 million sold of the last game, we’re still a player in the whole fighting scene and that’s what I’m most proud of. So I think that people who play it now are kind of like “oh, that’s how Mortal Kombat used to be.” That’s what state of the art was in 1992. To me, that’s what all of that kind of means.
BB: You guys are going to be unleashing Deception at E3 and it’s finally going to be playable. Are you guys nervous about that or excited? Relieved?
EB: Not relieved (laughs). Nervous, totally. We’re working so hard on it right now and you want to keep so much stuff in it and see people’s reaction. But, there’s no guarantees or anything. So, we’re excited and nervous about how its going to be received.
BB: Are you planning on implementing any Xbox Live 3.0 features in the game?
EB: We’re still going through a lot of the details right now and are working with our developer relations guys. We’re trying to figure out what the different features are and what we can do. We don’t have a list in stone of all the features yet.
John Podlasek: It’s sort of timing thing, you know. We’ve really kind of mapped out what we want to do. And then we got the list of all the features that Xbox Live was going to have and we started to talk to Microsoft to see what we could implement in this game and what we may have to wait and implement in the next one.
BB: Which 3.0 features would you be interested in, and would you also be able to implement them for the PS2 version?
EB: Well, it’s two totally different things. On the PS2 it’s more of a lobby thing, and on the Xbox you’re going through servers.
JP: And, they have different rules, too.
EB: Yeah, there’s a lot of TRC related stuff. I’m not really comfortable about giving all the details right now. The bottom line is that it’ll be online and it’ll be like the old arcade days, that element of playing against another human and not just the AI.
JP: You know, that whole arcade experience of playing against someone you don’t know. I guess we’re most excited about that, and being able to play the puzzle games online, the board games online, and the fighting games online.
EB: It’ll be cool to see when it comes out to go online and see how many people are online and see what modes they’re playing and what they have to say about it all. It’ll create this community. There’s already a huge community for our other games, so instead of just talking about stuff on the Net they’ll be able to go and play against each other.
BB: I’ve played fighting games on Xbox Live, like Capcom Vs. SNK, and encountered lag. Not a lot, but I did have some issues. How are you guys working to address that issue?
EB: We played Capcom’s game as well, and from the beginning that was our number one thing. How do we reduce the lag? Our approach to the whole issue of communication between the two systems is pretty radically different and our main goal was to never take away your control of your character. In terms of when we sent something back and when you respond to controls, we have a completely different set of rules and we’re actually very excited about what we’re getting back so far with it. It’s an ongoing process since the very nature of fighting games is so twitch and you want to respond right away, so that’s what we really wanted to focus our energy on. The inherent delay that you would usually get as a result of broadband, we want to keep it a fun experience. We’re only going to support broadband, we don’t want the game only being good online for a small percentage of players. We think people will be pleased with it.
BB: Will there be anything that you can’t do online in this game? The last time we talked in Las Vegas you made it clear that everything that you could do offline, you could also do online, like the various game modes and mini-games.
JP: The Conquest mode can’t be played online, it’s a single player mode.
BB: Are you guys planning any downloadable content?
EB: Probably not in this version. We were dying to do something like a downloadable background or character, but the task of getting both the Xbox and PS2 online and all these modes was just a ton of content. We kind of had to draw the line on downloadable content.
JP: When we looked at Deadly Alliance, we were like “wow, this looks generic.”
EB: Yeah, when you look at Deadly Alliance, it looks like a generic version of Deception.
BB: Why did you guys decide to add the puzzle games, quest mode, and board games?
EB: Because it wasn’t expected. When you think about it, this is Mortal Kombat 6. We’ve seen the big guys like the Tekkens even start to take a dip in sales. We really wanted to do the most unexpected next iteration. Everyone thought that we would enhance the fighting system and add more characters. So we said let’s add some new things like the puzzle games and the board games. A lot of people thought we were crazy.
JP: A lot of the press guys thought we were insane.
EB: The experience is going to be way more.
JP: There’ll be something for everybody.
EB: That’s a good point. A lot of people say “I play Tetris with my girlfriend or I play Puzzle Fighter with my girlfriend,” and now there will be a reason to play the game with your girlfriend. And, online, too.
BB: Who do you think your favorite character will be in Deception?
EB: I don’t know, it’s hard to say.
JP: Mine’s always Scorpion, since the first game to the last game as well.
BB: Do you have anything else you’d like to say?
EB: It’s like John said, we’re both nervous and excited about it. We really don’t want people to see it until it’s absolutely finished. So, not every single character will be playable at E3. Not every background will be there. But, a good representation of what the game will be will be at E3.
BB: Do you know how many characters will be playable in the E3 version?
EB: Around 10.
BB: Thank you both for your time and we look forward to getting our hands on Deception at E3.