Mortal Kombat Online - The Ultimate Mortal Kombat Experience

MK Online at Midway Gamer's Day 2007 - Interview With Shaun Himmerick

January 26, 2007

D'Arque Bishop: Once again this is Scott Bishop with Mortal Kombat Online at Midway Winter Gamer's Day 2007. I'm here with Shaun Himmerick, producer of Mortal Kombat Armageddon for the Wii. We got him sufficiently liquored up so maybe he'll answer a few questions for us. How you doing today, Shaun?

Shaun Himmerick:I'm doing very well!

Bishop:Alright, so Mortal Kombat Armageddon for the Wii - what challenges have you encountered in developing that version so far?

Himmerick: The biggest challenge of course is the controller. We've gone through at least three or four iterations with the Kombat controller. Motor Kombat was a lot easier, we actually liked the first version we put in. It went pretty well. For Konquest, it's camera and all sorts of challenges. All the challenges revolved around the controller which is rare for us. Normally it's all about platform, backward-compatibility (bringing it down to the GameCube or something). But for the Wii, it's all about the controller.

Bishop:Midway themselves did not port this version, did they? Didn't you have an outside company port this game?

Himmerick:Yeah, we're having it done third party. Ed is still creatively directing it. Ed and I have literally been in Los Angeles every other week for about a month and a half. I deal with them numerous times a day. They're doing the port of the technology and Ed's doing all the design stuff.

Bishop:And of course I would imagine you still have your guys back in Chicago doing work on the game, on the Wii version of Armageddon, helping people out at this third party. Correct?

Himmerick:Oh certainly, we have Paulo, Brian, Eddie, and John -- I feel like I should say all their names as soon as I said one -- they're back there and they play the game regularly go like "Hey, these things we should change! We should change this, we should change that! This doesn't work!" They're back there giving comments all the time, sending it back. And of course Steve and Tony are still the art directors, they still monitor anything new that goes through the game, art wise.

Bishop:Okay, we've already heard that we're going to see female Khameleon.

Himmerick:Indeed we are! I was unaware we were going to announce that tonight but apparently Ed said it, so we're going to!

Bishop:Well you heard it first, folks! And of course the different control scheme--

Himmerick:And Endurance!

Bishop:And Endurance! Tell us about Endurance.

Himmerick:Well, Endurance we did for the PSP. But the PSP version wasn't as popular as we thought it would be just on the platform, so we're bringing it back to the Wii for the single player experience. I've always liked the Endurance because it embraces the single player experience. MK's always about head-to-head but this is the first time you have that, "I'm gonna play" and it's just like enemy-enemy-enemy-enemy like that right on top of you. I can't actually beat Endurance so I'm raelly excited to see other people play it. When I get to like 14 or 15 I'm happy.

Bishop:And of course as I understand it, there's no online play on the Wii version?

Himmerick:There is not. Nintendo really didn't have their technology in-line when we needed it, it's really not in-line now... so, no.

Bishop: Another surprise that Ed threw on us that maybe you can shed some light on -- this is probably going to come as a shock to you as well -- he mentioned a possible DS version. Is there anything you can tell us about that?

Himmerick:We are working on a Mortal Kombat for the DS. It is not a necessarily new idea to Mortal Kombat. It has taken some things from Mortal Kombat's past, and making it playable on the DS with game-sharing and full internet all of that.

Bishop:So basically -- is it a classic game, like MK's 1-4, current-gen game like MKDA-MKA, or is this something completely new and different?

Himmerick:Is it something completely new and different, you're gonna see a little something from the past, a little of something from the very recent history. We wanted to do just kind of a small DS-package for the fans. The MK Team are kind of all fans of the DS, we all like the DS. So you're gonna see something from the past, something from the present, in a fun little package.

Bishop:Okay - one last question. "Tell your friends", that wasn't actually your invention, was it?

Himmerick:Indeed it wasn't! In art reviews starting back in 2003, Steve Beran one of our art directors said it. I thought he said it first, Ed claims he might've said it first. But he kinda said it because we were kind of dealing with at the time Paradox, which became Midway L.A. They said a lot of things in art reviews that you wouldn't normally say to an artist, and then I had to interpret those things and go take them back to those artists in L.A. So they would say something that was more mean than necessary, just for the funny value, and then they'd go "Well, tell your friends!" I kind of made that a joke, so I made it really popular to say around the MK team in Midway Chicago and even Midway L.A. The habit kind of developed, and Ed just found it funny, the way I said it. And the other thing Ed loves to repeat that I say is, in Deception I'm the voice of the peeping tom, and he loves hearing me say... The peeping tom has a series of phrases, and now I can't remember what the hell he says. It's the melons line... I feel bad that I can't remember, I'm wasting your time on video. It's "melons" and "I think she's doing it....on purpose!" That's what it was, on purpose!

Bishop:I think he's wasting our time on purpose! Who knows? Tell your friends! This is Scott Bishop from Midway Gamer's Day, and our coverage may continue!