Mortal Kombat on the Wii interview

FiringSquad: First, was it always the plan to port Mortal Kombat: Armaggedon to the Wii or did Midway decide to bring the game to the console after its huge reception at E3 2006?

Shaun Himmerick: When we first started designing MK Armageddon we didn’t know much about the Wii, let alone have development systems. So we didn’t always have a plan to do Armageddon for the Wii. However, after we got our hands on one, we realized we had the opportunity to make something really unique. The fact that the Wii is selling so well really kind of sealed the deal.

FiringSquad: How hard was it to get the Wiimote to work with a game that was originally designed for conventional controllers?

Shaun Himmerick: This was the biggest challenge in the game. We could not approach this as a port or as “just make it work”. We approached it as a redesign of the controls, basically as if the Wii version was its own game. The Wii system was so new that the biggest difficulty we had with the controller was learning what it could and could not do in the game. We went though quite a few experiments before deciding on the final system we use.