Gamespot has a "Behind the Games" feature of The Final Hours of Quake III Arena, chronicling the last days of development of Q3A. In this feature, id artist, Kevin Cloud, explains what approach id took towards developing Quake III Arena. Overall it is an interesting read. Here is the bit about Mortal Kombat.

"From the start, the idea was to make Quake III similar to a fighting game like Mortal Kombat," says id's Kevin Cloud, the laid-back and sagacious co-owner of id. "It's similar to Mortal Kombat in many ways. There aren't mind-bending puzzles to solve or things like that, and it really boils down to a game of skill." For those familiar with the online deathmatch in Quake, which really started with Doom in 1993, id games have always been about skill: Players try to circle-strafe their opponents and rack up as many frags - online parlance for kills - as they can. Today, it has developed into an online sport; some call it "Quakercize."

The folks over at IGNPC have a story that details the new Brazilian legislation. This new legislation has made 6 games (Doom, Postal, Mortal Kombat, Requiem, Blood, and Duke Nukem) illegal to sell in the country of Brazil. The legislation comes from the recent movie theater shooting in Sao Paulo. Click here to read more.

IGN64 posted the following story last week that tells about the cancellation of Mortal Kombat: Special Forces for the Nintendo 64 game console. They say after John Tobias and other members of the MK:SF team left, the remaining team decided to focus on the development of "non-N64" versions of Special Forces. So we don't know what the status of the game for the other consoles. Click here to read more.