Ed Boon

Edward J. Boon (born February 22 (Pisces) 1964 in Chicago, Illinois) is a video game programmer, who works for Midway Games.

Biography

Boon, along with John Tobias is a co-creator of the Mortal Kombat fighting game series. He continues to work on the ongoing series of games, movies and TV shows. He is easily recognized due to his incredibly thick eyebrows. Boon is generally credited as the lead programmer while Tobias is lead designer. He has also provided voice acting and motion capture for the games.

Boon graduated in 1986 from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and computer science.

List of works

Video games

• Smash TV (All Voices)
• Mortal Kombat
• Mortal Kombat II
• Mortal Kombat 3
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
• Mortal Kombat Trilogy
• Mortal Kombat 4
• Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero
• Mortal Kombat Gold
• Mortal Kombat: Special Forces
• The Grid
• Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
• Mortal Kombat: Deception
• Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks
• Mortal Kombat: Armageddon
• Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe

Pinball

• F-14 Tomcat (1987; effects)
• Space Station: Pinball Rendezvous (1987; software and effects)
• Banzai Run (1988; effects)
• Taxi (1988; software and effects)
• Black Knight 2000 (1989; software and effects)
• FunHouse (1990; Voice of Rudy)

Film

• Mortal Kombat (as the voice of Scorpion)
• Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (as the voice of Scorpion)

Trivia

• One of the characters in Boon's Mortal Kombat video games is named Noob Saibot (Ed Boon and John Tobias' last names spelled backwards.)
• In the Mortal Kombat Trilogy level "Subway" the sign in the back says "←Boon/Tobias→"
• His favorite Mortal Kombat character since the beginning of the franchise has been Scorpion.
• He named the character Tanya after his own sister, Tania. As well as naming the character Sonya Blade after his other sister, Sonya.
• Boon is a longtime fan of recording artist Prince; this has long been attributed to the selection of ninja Rain's purple palette swap since the character's debut appearance in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
• As a nod to another one of his favorite bands, Genesis, a code for the original Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis is "Abacabb", in reference to a Genesis album.
• Before he made himself famous for the Mortal Kombat series, he worked at Williams in the pinball division and also helped out with the development of Smash TV and Pigskin 621 A.D. arcade games.
• He has a younger brother, Mike Boon. Mike is known for programming pinball games (including the 1992 classic The Addams Family), and was involved in several Mortal Kombat projects.
• He has faced the winner of GameSpot's Scream It! contest in an MK battle. Users had to show that they were the biggest fan of the series by putting together a video and uploading it to the site.
• Boon has stated that he would like to see a Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter.

External links

• Ed Boon at the Internet Movie Database