Last week we were fortunate enough to conduct a conference call with Eric Engstrom, CEO of WildSeed. During the call we conducted an interview in a question/answer format, learning many new details regarding the company's GameSkin technology that will allow gamers to play in a Gameboy Advance fashion, Midway's Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance on Curitel's new Identity cell phone. When asked about what carriers would offer the Identity phone, Eric answered:

We have announced a deal with Dobson, which is the ninth largest regional carrier in the United States. The other carrier deals are not announced yet. You might imagine that the carriers are picky about when we announce things. You can, and I think that's reasonable for them to do that. You can obviously buy the phone un-SIM locked, put your GMS SIM in it, so that would be AT&T, T-Mobile, Cingular or some other regional carrier, and the phone will work fine. That's the beauty of GSM.

He continues to explain how the GameSkins in general will stand up against current mobile gaming technologies that are out, or will be coming out within the next year. From the call:

I think the way to think of this is to compare it favorably to a Nintendo GameBoy Advance. The screen's a little smaller, the processor is a lot more powerful, and you're connected. So, while we will move a lot of GameBoy Advance style games over to Identity, what you will also see is the ability to download new levels, upload scores, download new weapons, that sort of thing. But you know, I believe that the next generation game platform for the next year will be ahead of Indentity. So if you look at the Sony Playstation/Personal Playstation.. you know you can't put it in your pocket and it's not a cell phone, but it's probably a better game device. If you compare us to Nokia's N-Gage I think we win hands down. If you compare us to Nintendo GameBoy Advance, I think it's a much better gaming experience for a little older player, I guess is the way I would put it slightly. If you look at the demographics for GBA they tend to be 14 and down and our phone is targeted, for well, 15 and up.

During the rest of the conference call Eric provided us with a great deal of information regarding the technology behind the GameSkin itself, as well as what to expect out of this Deadly Alliance port. Coming in at 19.2 MB, we are providing a 21 minute MP3 file of the phone call.

WildSeed's GameSkin for Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is expected to hit shelves by this summer. More information will continue to be released as we receive it.

Team X-Box has posted an article in which they give their impressions on Midway's Mortal Kombat: Deception, based on the build they saw at E3! Nothing new is really revealed in this article, though they do take the time to give their impressions of the game. From the article:

There have also been a couple of tweaks made to the engine which powered Deadly Alliance, but for the most part, the game plays much the same. Gamers are still able to switch fighting stances on the fly which balances out any apparent advantages between most of the characters. Each fighting style has its own group of combos, along with special moves which can be activated with the right controller inputs. The button configs are the same but now there is the ability to pick up and dispose of level weapons. The weapons are best saved for trying to knock opponents into a death trap since they are extremely hard to swing and really slow a character down (the ones we experienced were always near a death trap). Picking up a weapon is a one button affair and getting rid of one can be done merely by changing styles.

There is an obvious increase to the overall speed of the gameplay in Mortal Kombat: Deception which will confuse fans of DA for awhile. After some quality time with Deception, we actually liked the faster game pace since it really separated itself from its predecessor and made the action feel more advanced without feeling hokey. We’re sure that the game speed will be tweaked even further since it seemed as though the aerial moves still were running at the slower rate. Even at the higher speeds, the game seemed to retain a satisfactory framerate, even when breakable objects and multi-tiered drops were in effect.

To see the article in its entirety, click here.

Our thanks to forum/chat member CAMK for the heads-up on this news story!

For those who had difficulty viewing Mortal Kombat Online's Exclusive Video Interview with Ed Boon (which can still be downloaded here [Right-Click/Save As]), the official transcript has now been made available! From the interview:

Scott Howell Alright, Question #2 is from Alfonso Navarro from San Paulo, California. "In the past, it was said there would be 24 characters in total for MK: Deception, the amount we've seen in most of the line-up or heard of their confirmation. Boon, are you planning more, meaning will there be more than 24 characters?"
Ed Boon Yes, there will be more than 24 characters. Your main grid of characters will be 8x3 which will be 24 characters, but we do like hiding additional characters in the Konquest mode that will be in addition to the 24 characters.

To read the rest of the transcript, click here. Thanks to forum member GuiltyByDesign for helping to complete this transcript!

GameTrailers.com, an affiliate of Happy Puppy, has come through with some new videos of Mortal Kombat: Deception. All of the videos appear to be the same ones we first witnessed and recorded by our video camera during the presentation that Ed Boon made at the Midway Games MK: Deception Launch party on May 11th. Now you can watch as we did in wicked detail as fatalities are performed by returning favorites, including Sub-Zero and Baraka. Hopefully these fatalities will put the same sick feeling in your stomach, just as they did to us at the party! Links to all of the videos are below:

• Mortal Kombat: Deception Fatality Video

• Mortal Kombat: Deception Gameplay Video

• Mortal Kombat: Deception Konquest Video

• Mortal Kombat: Deception Puzzle Kombat Video

• Mortal Kombat: Deception Chess Kombat Video

Thanks to Mortal Kombat Online forum poster austintrees for bringing these to our attention!

It looks as if the Mortal Kombat: Deception Development Team has started another round of post-E3 interviews. HomeLan has scored the latest, which although touches on almost everything that is already learned like gameplay features and online modes, Steve Baren makes the first public announcement of characters Kira and Dairu. From the interview:

HomeLAN - While you are bringing back old favorites from past Mortal Kombat games, there will be some new characters. What can you tell us about MK Deception’s new fighters?

Steve Beran, Character Designer - We have a lot of new characters in MK Deception. Kira is a leather clad beauty and the newest member of Kano’s infamous Black Dragon gang. Hotaru is a guardian of Order. His current mission is to restore order to Outworld. Dairu is a deadly mercenary. Ashrah is a demon hunter bent on purifying herself of evil.

To find out what other developers had to say about the game, you can read the entire article in full by clicking here. Thanks goes out to MK Online forum user prince_goro78 for the news lead.