ShaolinChuan Wrote:Can someone please make a transcript of the fan interview for us 56k'ers, thanks
I made a transcript for anyone who can't see the video. Here you go.
Aaron Hallstrom: Hello, and welcome to Mortal Kombat Online. This is Aaron Hallstrom.
Justin Deering: And this is Justin Deering.
Aaron: And joining us is my friend and yours, Ed Boon, series creator, along with Shaun Himmerick, Shaolin Monks producer.
Justin: We have a couple questions we want to ask you about Mortal Kombat. Uh, the first thing is when Deadly Alliance came out, it was a different style Mortal Kombat game than we were accustomed to. We're just wondering if MK7 is going to be as radically a leap forward?
Ed Boon: Uh, most likely, yeah, ya know I think, I think, with each generation of, um, when we introduce a new Mortal Kombat on a new generation we try to make a dramatically different change in the gameplay as the visual presentation.
Justin: Um, is MK7 gonna even be on the next generation of consoles?
Ed: Um, you know what, we are looking at current and next gen...um, uh, technology right now so we haven't come up with a final plan but we're looking at both right now.
Aaron: There's been a lot of talk with Midway aquiring the Unreal 3 engine. Do you have any plans of incorporating that into Shaolin Monks or into the next Mortal Kombat title?
Ed: Uh, graphically I would imagine I think Midway in general is going to be using the Unreal 3 engine and, you know, I would imagine like a Shaolin Monks sequel or something would probably, you know, participate in that.
Justin: So it's a little late to actually incorporate the Unreal engine into Shaolin Monks at this point.
Shaun: Way too late.
Justin: (laughs)
Aaron: Now, Shaun, how does the fighting engine in Shaolin Monks differ from the Mortal Kombat: Deception or Deadly Alliance fighting engine?
Shaun: Well, it's no longer head to head fighting in Shaolin Monks. It's, uh, what we call our multi-directional fighting angle, fighting engine. Any direction, any time, in the air, on the ground, it doesn't matter. Uh, all the attacks link seamlessly in any direction at any time. To allow the players to fight with multiple enemies not just head to head.
Aaron: Alright. Well, we've seen a lot of different modes in Shaolin Monks. We've seen co-op. We've seen single player. We've also seen the versus mode. Is there anything else, uh, in terms of gameplay that we can expect?
Shaun: Uh, one boss battle is something I like to highlight is when we take an MK style fight and then we blow it out using all the adventure things that we can't normally use but in an adventure game we have access to.
Justin: Alright, a lot of people are wondering, um, for MK7 what kind of improvements can we expect to be made to the fighting engine in regards to fan input?
Ed: Uh, well I think, I think, we're always looking for, um, you know we always want to hear what the fans wanna, wanna, uh, see in the game. We haven't...we certainly haven't come up with a final, you know, fighting mechanic. There's certain ideas we'd like to, you know, explore. There's a lot of research that goes into, you know, changing...when you completely revamp a fighting engine. But, you know, we're always open to hearing, you know, suggestions. We read the message boards and we like to hear what people want to see as well. I suppose on some level all fighting games are kind of competing against each other although, you know, we, we make a conscious effort to be as different as we can from the, the, the, the Tekkens and the Virtua Fighters because, you know, if you make those exact games you're basically just going to share the marketplace. You know, we, we have a completely separate feel and style of our fighting and that's that's, I think that's helped us stay as, you know, as, uh, as popular as the game has.
Aaron: Absolutely.
Justin: Now taking it back to Shaolin Monks for a minute, how does the opportunity to control other characters come up...and what characters might they be?
Shaun: Uh, well you start as Liu Kang and Kung Lao or as both playing the game and they have a completely different feel. Ed prefers Kung Lao. I actually prefer Liu Kang. They have a very different feel to them so all the playable characters feel different. Uh, one other playable character is Sub-Zero, uh, and you don't just play through the game as an unlockable or secret. It doesn't have a separate story or anything like that. But they'll have all their own super moves, all their own upgrades.
Aaron: Now obviously the fans of Mortal Kombat have a special place in their hearts for the storyline. Now what are you doing with Shaolin Monks in order to make sure that the storyline is consistant with what we've seen in previous titles?
Ed: Uh, well, you know the storyline is really the MKII storyline and I guess the, the, what's really different about the Shaolin Monks story is it, it is elaborating on a story that, um, everybody already knows. So, you know, everybody knows that Liu Kang won the first Mortal Kombat tournament. And everybody knows that Kung Lao was kind of introduced around Mortal Kombat II. But what Shaolin Monks does is it takes the story that you know and then it expands on it. So you see a lot of familiarity. You see a lot of stuff that you know but then you also see a lot more depth explained to it both visually with, you know, the 3D elements and in the story as well.
Aaron: Do you find yourselves checking out the fan sites in order to see what the fans have said about the story in order to try to rectify that with what you've had in your mind with the story?
Shaun: Uh, we don't not as much rectify. We hired a story writer who did an obscene amount of research in Mortal Kombat checking all the old, uh, strategy guides. Uh, there's a lot of misinformation on the internet [
Aaron: Absolutely.] so we don't actually use that as a resource. The guys on the team are a great resource. John Vogel and them. Uh, he did a ton of research. He wrote the story, on many part versions, so we would go through and like 'oh that can't quite be there,' 'that quite, can't quite be there.' But we also try to bring a lot of those secrets into the story like why Kitana's tied up in the background of Shao Kahn's, uh, arena and things like that.
Aaron: I've always wondered that. Good.
Shaun: You'll find out.
Aaron: Alright.
Justin: Now with Shaolin Monks being released can we expect a, more of these types of games if this one has a decent amount of success?
Shaun: Uh, obviously if this has success we'll look at a sequel but we've not started any work towards that to focus on this being the best game possible.
Ed: Yeah, uh, I think in general the Mortal Kombat games, we do want to expand them from not just a fighting game line but also a fighting game and an action adventure line. So, you know, you could pretty much tell your friends.
Aaron: Now what can you tell us about the PSP version of Mortal Kombat: Deception? Will it have all of the same features as the versions that we've seen on the consoles?
Ed: At least. Um, you know, uh, we would like to add, you know, a new mode of play into the game. We'd like to certainly add more characters and what have you. But you're gonna see Konquest mode. You're gonna see chess. You're gonna see Puzzle Kombat. And you're gonna see, uh, the fighting game all...at least those, uh, features in the game.
Shaun: And, and functional wirelessly so you can play head to head.
Justin: And it'll have the Krypt and, uh, Kontent and all that stuff.
Ed and Shaun: (nodding in agreement)
Justin: And how about characters? Is it gonna have all the same characters that are in the consoles? Uh, Goro, Shao Kahn?
Ed: Like I said, yeah, at least, at least those characters. You know that, at the, you know, we'd like to, we're looking into seeing if we can add even more.
Aaron: So we can expect to see Goro and Shao Kahn from the Gamecube exclusive.
Ed: Sure.
Aaron: Excellent.
Justin: Can you tell us about what characters you're considering adding in as an extra?
Ed: It's not in the game. I mean, we're we're, we always go through a whole voting process of, you know, which ones do we want to have in there and what moves would be cool to add and all that.
Aaron: Will we ever see Rain again?
Ed: Absolutely.
Justin: Don't ask him that.
Aaron: (laughing). We'll cut all that out.
Justin: Alright. Well this concludes the Mortal Kombat Online interview.
Aaron: Thank you guys very much for joining us. We appreciate everything that you're doing. We look forward to playing Shaolin Monks.
Ed: Thank you.
Justin: Thank's a lot for your time, guys.
Shaun: Cool, tiger.
