Mortal Kombat surely has its place in history. Despite its speed bumps and controversies, the series has become one of the biggest for Midway, and produced a hardcore gaming audience that ate up the last release, Mortal Kombat: Deception, like the scrumptious blood-oozing dish that it was. Now, the company's straying off the beaten path yet again with the series with the forthcoming Shaolin Monks, a brawler that has lots of potential. We sat down with legendary co-creator and creative director Ed Boon to talk everything Kombat, and why he was beaten by a blind gamer at his own game, prompting him to kiddingly yell "This game sucks!".

GD: Why the different direction with Shaolin Monks? Obviously, the series is known more for its fighting roots, so why try something new in the action field?

Boon: I've always had a philosophy of, if you're doing a game that has a whole bunch of sequels, you're given the additional challenge all the time of introducing new elements to the game. I've always tried to add things, like weapons or different fighting styles or fatalities, something that other games don't have. I feel like Mortal Kombat: Deception was really Mortal Kombat 6 when you think about it. So we really felt that we need to have dramatic changes in order to keep the game kinda fresh, and I think Shaolin Monks is one of those things. It's like "let's take it in a completely different direction, let's do something that people weren't expecting", and that's like the real reason for doing it.

GD: I notice there's a lot of implementation of some of the older elements from the game, like the spiky pits from Mortal Kombat. Was it really a challenge to design such a game that includes older stuff and try to blend it together in a huge level like that?

Boon: It wasn't a challenge from like a creative standpoint. I think the fact we decided to make a two-player game with Liu Kang and Kung Lao. Since it was those two, we couldn't set it in the present, because Liu Kang's dead. And so we had to set it in the area where people are most familiar with. I think Mortal Kombat II is the area that most people have the most knowledge of. So we thought we would just take a story that they know, and expand on it by adding layers, adding elements people don't know about.

GD: The game uses a very intricate combo system that allows you to do juggles and use older moves from the game. How long did it take to perfect the system like that to get it to really work?

Boon: The guys at Midway LA, they actually had devised this fighting mechanic before I had even seen the game, and it was a little bit different. I think that our influence in Chicago made it a little bit more accessible. But they had done a lot of work to get some of the intricacies of the fighting and mechanics done, and I was really impressed with the work they did with that. So, we basically used modification of something that it was based on. I thought that they did a great job.

GD: How many levels can we expect to see in Shaolin Monks? Is it going to take quite a while to defeat?

Boon: There are more hidden features than many know about. There's a ton of extras. I mean, Mortal Kombat is really synonymous with secrets, secret characters, unlocking certain things. I always like to think of Mortal Kombat with a question mark over it. "Have you seen everything?" I think there's gonna be plenty of stuff to be unlocked for months and months after its release.

GD: How do you feel the Mortal Kombats also getting a lot of attention in the Midway Arcade Treasures releases? People can now go back and see where the series began.

Boon: It's really weird. It's like, it's exciting, but at the same time, it's kinda, I feel like it dates me. Some parts of me think of Mortal Kombat as this big stretch. But, in reality, we started in 1992, like thirteen years ago. So it is a retro game now, Mortal Kombat 1 is a retro game, just like I consider Pac-Man or Defender as a retro game when I started making video games. It's nice that it's lasted this entire span of time.

GD: I have to ask you about your little mini-tournament tonight against a blind gamer. What did you think about when you were fighting him? Were you wowed by his skills?

Boon: The first couple of rounds, I really wasn't expecting him to have that kind of intricate knowledge of the combo system. Once he throws me with Sub-Zero and got off his six or seven hit combo on me, I was like, he isn't randomly pushing buttons. When he beat me a few times, I was amazed how much he was getting out of the audio of the game. I think he's hearing footsteps. He hears the sound from the spear when I throw it, and he knows it's coming, so then he blocks it. I was amazed how much he was getting out of the audio.

GD: Finally, I know you really can't go into too much detail about what's coming with Mortal Kombat 7, but are you guys excited about working on the next-generation consoles, possibly taking the series in a new direction?

Boon: Yeah, we're very excited. I think the Mortal Kombat next-gen games are going to do what Deadly Alliance did. It's gonna wipe the slate clean, have a new fighting mechanic, a dramatic change in presentation, gameplay, and everything. It's just going to mix it up again, as novel of an experience as possible.

GD: Thank you so much for your time, Ed.

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks arrives later this month for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.