the very negative reception of Special Forces. In October 2004, the president of Midway Games, David F. Zucker, called the release of Shaolin Monks the "first step toward delivering something that Mortal Kombat fans have been calling for: a new game set in the Mortal Kombat universe every year." Producer Shaun Himmerick stated the team wanted to make a Mortal Kombat with a "deeper story." The team were fans of adventure games and decided to follow that direction. Mortal Kombat creator worked as the creative director for Shaolin Monks and joined the programmers from the team to make the fighting engine. The team found a challenge in combining action elements with their multi-directional fighting engine, in an effort to avoid turning the game into a "button smasher". Their idea was to give the player more freedom to execute several moves together than any other adventure game. They would be able to attack in any direction they wanted. The team added multiple Mortal Kombat elements to the game to make the game more appealing. Since Mortal Kombat II was Ed Boon's favorite game in the series, the story of this spin-off was based on it. There was also a desire to include both Liu Kang and Kung Lao as protagonists with the latter having been introduced in Mortal Kombat II. The game's versus mode originated from a bug that allowed testers to face each other. Unlike in the typical Mortal Kombat games, the versus mode was made to include adventure games' elements. The engine is different from the one from Mortal Kombat Deception and was made to rival other adventure games. The co-op mode was made so that players would be able to work together to perform new moves and discover content that a single player cannot do. Originally, it was planned to allow more than two players in the co-op mode. While Dan Forden was the audio director, Jamie Christopherson worked as the composer. Reception Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks has sold over one million copies and received mostly favorable reviews. At GameRankings, it holds an average of 79.10% and 80.64% for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles respectively. The game was praised by critics for translating the franchise into an entertaining action game. The gameplay was noted for having the same movements from the classic Mortal Kombat games such as the Fatalities and the way combos are handled compared to