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News: Ed Boon Talks Mortal Kombat

Posted by Fierce_Link - Sep 9th 2006 02:09

Here's what the Top Dog had to say about his latest title.

Ed Boon, project head at Midway, recently talked with giants, IGN, about the latest Mortal Kombat title. Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is the latest edition in the highly brutal fighting franchise and looks set to come to a Wii near you sometime during the early part of next year.

IGN Wii: How you would like to work the control mechanics in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for Wii?
Ed Boon: I have a number of ideas that we are going to try out, but don't think we are at the point in development where we can talk about the details of how the control scheme is going to work. Our primary goal is to make the controls responsive, intuitive and novel. It wouldn't make sense to us not to offer a new gaming experience with such a dramatic new control mechanism.

IGN Wii: In the past, you were quoted as saying the Wii-mote might not be a good fit for fighters. Do you still feel this is true?
Ed Boon: Actually, my comments in the past were referring to the Wii-mote and the traditional fighting formula/format that exists today. This format was designed for a controller with many (around 8) buttons. There will inherently be challenges to adapting it to a different control scheme. Imagine you designed a driving game using a steering wheel, gas and brake pedals as the inputs. Then someone comes along and asks you to change the control scheme to use a keyboard instead. A challenge? Yes. Changing an existing fighting game to use different controls is also going to introduce challenges. I think the best way to address this is to rethink the play mechanic to make the most out of the new control mechanism.

IGN Wii: Do you think Wii's horsepower is adequate enough to represent the new MK game?
Ed Boon: Yes, I do think the Wii has enough horsepower to handle Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.

IGN Wii: A major selling point of Nintendo's new Wii platform is its Virtual Console, which enables users to connect online and download -- for a price -- classic games from Nintendo and third parties. What are your thoughts about bringing over classic MK games to the Virtual Console?
Ed Boon: I would love to see that happen!

IGN Wii: Finally, what do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of Wii and where do you see console in the marketplace in two years?
Ed Boon: I hope the Wii is going to carve out its own market and will be very successful. As budgets for game development keeps going up and the prices for each system does the same, the Wii will become a more and more attractive option for both gamers as well as developers.

Some encouraging words. Lets just hope he is right.

Source: IGN

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