August 20, 2009

Vicarious Visions Karthik Bala discusses bringing Guitar Hero 5 to the Wii
By Michael Lafferty

“The team here at VV has put their heart and souls into the game to make the best music game we can on the Wii platform”

In many regards, while the Wii is one of the best-selling among the next-gen console platforms, when it comes to certain genres, it does not seem to have as high a profile as the other consoles. That notwithstanding, though, Vicarious Visions is gearing up Guitar Hero 5 for the Wii with quite a number of changes that should appeal to Wii fans and GH fans alike.

Karthik Bala, the CEO of VV, took time to chat about the upcoming title during a roundtable discussion Wednesday. Kathik actually was the founder of VV 18 years ago with his brother when both were in high school. Since then, the studio has worked on some high profile titles including ports of some of the top-selling titles in the Activision stable.

Bala started off by talking a bit about the transition from working on World Tour for the Wii to working on Guitar Hero 5.

“After we wrapped up on World Tour we took a step back and looked at all the things we wanted to focus on,” he said. “We listened to all the feedback and then started work on GH 5. We were pretty happy with World Tour but we knew there was a lot more we could do.”

The list was long and included a more robust online experience, some slicker abilities to control the stage show as well as implementation with the Nintendo DS, which yielded a mode known as Roadie Battle.

VV “really wanted to expand on the game design and worked with Neversoft on that. We wanted 100% parity with other platforms and do some things that the other platforms cannot do.”

Mii Freestyle was expanded and the dev team used a tool available from Nintendo to eliminate the need to manually add friend codes, while streamlining the ability for downloading online content.

As mentioned, the major new mode is Roadie Battle, which has two parts (for between two and four players). The first part is the guitarists and guitar battles on the stage. Part two is the behind-the-scenes battle with roadies using the DS to sabotage the other teams while repairing damage done to their own team.

This is an extremely strategic battle that is, as Bala stated, “really frenetic and fast-paced.” The idea is to outscore the opposition, but teams have to change strategies on the fly, moving from attacks to repairing damage to amps or guitars.

Why implement the DS into the Wii game?

“When we were looking into this we were shocked at the percentage of overlap with Wii and DS owners – that is what convinced us to go in this direction,” Bala said.

The DS also comes into play as the fourth player in a band concept. Using the DS, the fourth player is the stage-show manager. Players taking on the role will have control over the show, adjusting lights and cameras, and even triggering special effects. The customized show can then be saved as part of the song.

“Essentially you are creating your own music video,” Bala said.

Visually the game runs at 480p, and the rendering quality has significantly improved this year.

“And we’ve significantly improved the animation,” Bala said. “The graphics engine has undergone a bit of an overhaul as well.”

Wii connectivity was a priority, allowing players to easily get a patch that will allow previous downloadable content to work with the new features of Guitar Hero 5.

And, of course, there were a lot of challenges in bringing Guitar Hero, with all its new elements to the Wii. To that end, Vicarious Visions worked with Neversoft to make sure everything worked well. “Both Neversoft and VV teams were pretty dedicated to push ourselves and bring something different,” Bala said. “We didn’t want to rehash the game, we wanted to bring a lot of new stuff to the table. So that made it challenging in itself.”

From a new way to manage songs and playlists to the connectivity and implementation of the DS, there is a lot for Wii gamers to be excited about with the next iteration of the Guitar Hero franchise.

“The team here at VV has put their heart and souls into the game to make the best music game we can on the Wii platform,” Bala said. “There is a lot to offer there and some new experiences for the Wii consumer. We’re really proud of what we made.”

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