Games Convention 2008 - Interviews - Hector Sanchez - Part 1
Hector Sanchez Interview Transcript |
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Q1: Gambid: Would you tell us something more about yourself? How long
have you been a part of the team? What titles have you worked on? And
what is the job of the Associate Producer?
A1: Hector Sanchez: OK, officially I have been on the Mortal Kombat team
since the beginning of the year, but this isn't my first Mortal Kombat
game. I started as a QA tester on Mortal Kombat unchained for PSP two
years ago. After that I was the lead tester on Mortal Kombat: Armageddon
for the Wii. I also worked on Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for PS2 and Xbox
at the same time as well and just recently I have been promoted to the
Associate Producer. My job is kind of utility management. I kind of do a
lot of stuff, there is not one specific thing that I do. I can do
anything from making sure the team gets all their food ordered in every
night to communicating with DC and submitting things for approval like
Fatalities and those kind of things. I kind of just do it all. Whatever
Ed doesn't have time to do and needs to be taken care he kind of gives
it to me and lets me handle it so there is not one thing I do. I kind of
do a little bit of everything.
Gambid: That's good actually.
Hector Sanchez: Yea, I get, you know. I love it, I get to work with all
the disciplines, you know. If I was an artist I would just be doing art.
If I was a programmer I was just be doing programming. So, as a producer
I can kind of go through and I can have a general understanding about
how everything works. I work with designers, I work with the artists, I
work with, you know, everybody: marketing, PR, all kind of stuff, so
it's really really cool.
Q2: Gambid: That's great. OK, question 2. What has been added/has
changed in this build of the game compared to the one shown on
Comic-Com?
A2: Hector Sanchez: We added Joker and Kitana as playable characters.
Also we have added a „Rage“ mode. Basically it's a new mode that we kind
of get in there. We have a Rage meter build into the game now. Basically
it gets triggered after you have taken a lot of damage or you performed
a lot of special moves and ones it's build up you kind of trigger it and
you kind of go into this kind of mode where you are not really
invincible but you are very powerful. Your attacks deal out 50% more
damage, they are unblockable, if you are blocking you are still going to
take damage no matter what melee or projectile attack. And also the
reaction animations a kind of cut off. So, you can still be hitting me
now just barrow through it and keep attacking me. So that are the major
changes that we have.
Gambid: No collision detection actually.
Hector Sanchez: Yea, exactly.
Q3: Gambid: Question number 3. At what stage of the development of the
game are you currently?
A3: Hector Sanchez: We are probably at post beta where we are about to
wrap up and start our submission process pretty much. I would say about
85% - 90% is there. Everything is pretty much. It's just a lot of policy
to make sure that everything just running properly.
Gambid: This means, all characters are in, all arenas?
Hector Sanchez: Oh yea, all arenas, all characters, everybody is in. We
are not doing any more kind of art content. We are just, you know,
putting it all together and put in the final to shine right.
Q4: Gambid: Question number 4. What was your reaction on the fake
trailer that appeared on YouTube about a month before any official
information was released? You know the one with Raiden flashing in the
background, that everyone actually took for real.
A4: Hector Sanchez: I did see that one, I remember. Yea, you know what,
I was a little, I wasn't disappointed, it just shows the passion of our
fan base. That somebody will take the time out to kind of put that
together and it was really cool. I mean, it was done really well. I
mean, I like the pacing of it, but it is obviously not the quality of
Mortal Kombat, that you should come to expect from the Midway team. It
looked very amateurishly, there were a lot of things that were kind of
like, you know, little wrong about it and stuff like that but you know
it was a good attempt. It was nice to get people to talk about it, and
people did start to talking about it. So it serves its purpose. And it
got the person who did it... Did you do it?
Gambid: No, no... my visitors will kill me :)
Q5: Gambid: Question number 5. What was Mortal Kombat 8 before you took
the whole DC part into in? What was the concept?
A5: Hector Sanchez: Mortal Kombat 8 is... was a very dark, brutal, you
know greedy kind of game but pretty early on we know the DC part kind of
got, you know, mixed up into it so we didn't actually scratch that we
just put it on hold for a little bit of time right now. We are still
going to make, you know, dark, brutal Mortal Kombat M-rated game, but
right now we are doing this and it is going to be good and we don't
actually have anything else to say about the next game.
Gambid: OK, now some Storymode/story questions.