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Ed Boon on Ultimate Mortal Kombat June 27, 2007 - Anyone familiar with the Mortal Kombat franchise will immediately recognize the name Ed Boon -- he's the one half of the original two man design team still with Midway working on the Mortal Kombat franchise. When Midway let slip that it would be releasing Ultimate Mortal Kombat for the Nintendo DS, we couldn't resist throwing a few questions to Mr. Boon about this portable rendition due out in November. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IGN: Explain what "Ultimate Mortal Kombat" is for the Nintendo DS. Ed Boon: Ultimate Mortal Kombat for the Nintendo DS combines the arcade version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Puzzle Kombat which first appeared on Mortal Kombat Deception. Both games are included on this version and they both can be played solo, locally against a friend (on another DS) or online over the internet. We're really excited to have both of these games in one!! IGN: Why the arcade game and not the MK: Armageddon design? Ed Boon: We've been fortunate enough to have some great success bringing back the "old-school" MK games to some of the newer consoles. We've had great online playing versions of MK2 and MK3 on the Xbox 360 and the PS3. The DS has never had an MK game before so we thought it was a perfect fit. Since UMK3 has already come out for the home, we wanted to also offer something that the previous versions didn't have so we are including Puzzle Kombat. I'm not entirely sure we would be able to fit all of MK Armageddon on a DS cartridge. IGN: The previous Mortal Kombat updates for the Game Boy Advance, Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance and Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition were excellent, but the last time the classic Mortal Kombat 3 arcade game hit a Nintendo handheld it was, admittedly, horrific. Please do us a favor and put our minds at ease: how will you assure that this game will be arcade accurate on the Nintendo DS? Ed Boon: Oh come on now! 2.0 isn't THAT bad of a score….its better than 0.0 !! Actually if I can volunteer a little bit of insider information, Mortal Kombat Advance was completely made without my input. For what it's worth, myself and the original design team are very involved with this version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat for the DS. It will be arcade accurate and we are very excited about it. IGN: So Mortal Kombat 3 can be obtained for cheap on the Xbox 360, and as one of many games on the PlayStation Portable for a bargain price. What are you doing on the Nintendo DS to make the game a worthwhile purchase? Ed Boon: You're right. What we like to do is offer Mortal Kombat on different platforms so that we can take advantage of what those platforms have to offer. In the case of the DS, you can now take Ultimate MK with you and play against friends or strangers where you could not before….basically anywhere there is a WiFi access. We also added Puzzle Kombat as an added bonus and included online play with that as well. Neither of the previous releases let you play these games portable and online. That's one of the features the DS offers over the home consoles. IGN: Is the DS game being handled internally at Midway, or in development at an outsourced handheld developer? What's the team done in the past? Ed Boon: Ultimate Mortal Kombat is being developed by "Other Ocean Interactive". They used to have the name "Backbone Entertainment" and have a LOT of experience with Mortal Kombat and online play. They did an amazing job at making Ultimate MK3 for the Xbox Live Arcade and the online play for that game was outstanding. We are fully expecting that kind of excellence in this version of MK as well. IGN: An early screenshot of the game shows that the second screen's only being used to display a logo. Is this just an early mock-up? What sort of ideas do you have planned for the extra display? Ed Boon: That was an early mockup. We are experimenting with different ways to use the DS's extra screen. In Puzzle Kombat we are utilizing the upper screen to display the puzzle fighters as well as the Death Traps. This lets us devote the entire lower screen to the actual puzzle play. As for the fighting we are working on a few ideas but haven't fleshed them all and aren't quite ready to share them just yet. We don't want to radically change the control scheme for this game but would also like to introduce a new feature that takes advantage of the hardware. We will definitely keep you posted. IGN: Any touch screen functionality being inserted in there? Ed Boon: We are also working on some ideas for the touch screen. However, since the player's hands will be busy with the direction pad and the attack buttons, we probably won't do something crazy like having the player touch the screen for punches and kicks. IGN: What sort of multiplayer features are being planned for Mortal Kombat on the Nintendo DS? Ed Boon: We are planning on letting players fight against each other locally as well as finding opponents to fight against over the internet. We would also like to include game-sharing which would let someone without the game play by sharing the cartridge with someone who has the game locally. Currently, we are not sure to what extent we will be taking this feature but will certainly let you know what our decision is made.