Exclusive Interview: David Nathanielsz - GH: World Tour

Exclusive interview answering all your pressing questions regarding GH: World Tour

Today The Wiire spoke with David Nathanielsz, Executive Producer of Vicarious Visions, the development company behind the Wii's version of Guitar Hero: World Tour. The game dropped on October 26th, but for those debating whether or not the Wii version is worth a purchase, we have exclusive answers that will give you the scoop on what the latest version of Guitar Hero brings to the table. Does it Rock as hard as say, Van Halen or Metallica, or is it the video game equivalent of your high-school grunge band? Let's get right to the questions, and let the game speak for itself.

The Wiire: Guitar Hero World Tour is one of the most anticipated games of the year. Give us an idea of some of the newest features we’ll have access to on the Wii.

David Nathanielsz: Guitar Hero World Tour has a ton of new features! The most exciting improvement is the full band play – you can now play drums and sing, in addition, to playing the guitar and bass. Beyond this core gameplay expansion, we’ve packed the game with a lot of new modes and features such as an in-game Music Store where you can purchase downloadable content, a Music Studio which lets you create your own songs and play them in-game, GHTunesSM which is a large online community where you can upload and share your song creations as well as download other user’s creations and the Rock Star Creator that gives you the power to create your own rockers and customize your look, outfits, instruments, band logos and more.

We’ve also included Mii Freestyle, a brand new mode that’s exclusive to the Wii. This is a great pick-up-and-play freestyle mode that lets you put your own Mii up on stage to rock out and create cool music masterpieces. The mode can be played with one or two players and includes air-drum control which means you can use a Wiimote and Nunchuk to jam out on the drums. Mii Freestyle doesn’t require any musical theory knowledge. Within a few seconds, you can sound like a professional musician shredding on the guitar! At the same time, there are so many options and sounds within Mii Freestyle that you can create your own unique music in a variety of genres.

The Wiire: Keeping the same theme, how much does the Wii version of the game differ from other consoles? Will the Wii version be fully functional online?

David Nathanielsz: Our big focus for Guitar Hero World Tour on the Wii was to deliver the same set of features that you’ll find on the other consoles. We actually have more with Mii Freestyle! We have online play with up to eight players in head-to-head and an in-game Music Store with a great, varied selection of downloadable content. With the Music Studio and GHTunes, you can create, play and share your music with other users. There are fully customizable playable characters and instruments, and the same single-player campaign and full song-list from the other consoles. The only difference is that the Wii version has an exclusive Mii Freestyle mode just for Wii users.

The Wiire: The addition of an entire band to the Guitar Hero world is something many fans of the series are excited about, however, Guitar Hero is also known for its solo game play. How does Guitar Hero World Tour balance these two aspects?

David Nathanielsz: Guitar Hero World Tour has four single-player campaigns where you can choose to play the guitar career, bass career, drum career or singing career. Then there’s also the band career for two, three or four player co-operative jamming across any combination of instruments. Each career progression is different and built specifically for the chosen instrument. And of course, we have the quickplay mode that lets any number of players jump in and create a setlist of up to six songs to play in quick succession. What’s also really cool is that this setlist can be made up of songs from the game, downloaded songs from the Music Store, and even user-created content from GHTunes.

The Wiire: Speaking of the new instruments, we also understand that improvements have been made to the guitar. How does this guitar differ from the guitar in Guitar Hero III? Does it still require the Wii Remote?

David Nathanielsz: The new guitar controller definitely has some cool, new improvements! The whammy bar is a little longer and more easily accessible and we’ve added a star power button next to the strum bar which sits at the base of your palm and can be used to activate star power in game, if you don’t want to tilt your guitar. We also use this button for some very cool effects in Mii Freestyle. And perhaps the coolest addition is the Slider on the guitar neck that can be used during specific sections of songs to solo notes by sliding your finger up and down the neck. The slider also has some very cool functionality in the Music Studio to generate music loops and affect the tempo and sound of the tracks being laid down. All of these features are very cool; however, the game still works with the older guitar controllers from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Aerosmith.

Since we use Nintendo’s standard for our game controllers, the new guitar has a slot for your Wiimote to plug into. This gives you access to the guitar string audio from your guitar, the use of rumble in gameplay, and also means that you can transport your Mii with your Wiimote to a friend’s console to play Mii Freestyle with them.

The Wiire: The new drum kit will certainly add a new dimension to rocking out on the Wii! What can you tell us about its features and how it will change the game?

David Nathanielsz: There’s something incredibly fun about banging things and the drum controller brings that experience to Guitar Hero World Tour! The drum kit controller is really impressive – it has a kick pedal and five pads which include two raised cymbal pads – and it totally feels like you’re playing a real drum kit as you play along to the songs. Guitar Hero has always been a great social game to play with friends and family and with the new drumming and singing aspect, you can now get even more people around the TV to play the game together.

The Wiire: Guitar Hero has always been known for its amazing collection of music spanning many genres. How does Guitar Hero World Tour compare to the past collections? Will downloadable tracks finally be available to the Wii owners?

David Nathanielsz: Guitar Hero World Tour for the Wii ships with 86 songs on- disc. The track list is pretty amazing with songs from all ages and genres of music from artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen, Metallica, Michael Jackson and The Smashing Pumpkins. With the downloadable tracks available for the Wii you’ll be able to download tons of songs over the coming months and continually play new content.

The Wiire: Guitar Hero World Tour utilizes a new feature that allows gamers the ability to create their own music. Will Wii owners have full access to this feature and how will it change the Guitar Hero experience?

David Nathanielsz: Yes, the Wii version has the full Music Studio with Recording Studio, GHMix and GHTunes. This mode is very, very deep and provides a huge amount of flexibility for you to record and create your own rock anthems. There are hundreds of guitar, bass, drums and even keyboard sounds to pick from and use in your original songs.

Another great feature of the game is if you don’t feel like creating your own songs, you can just use GHTunes to review and download other people’s music. GHTunes is a large community which players can upload their song creations to, rate other people’s music, and download other player’s songs to play in-game. With downloadable content and GHTunes, there will be literally thousands of songs that you can access to play in Guitar Hero World Tour!

The Wiire: One of the more popular questions asked about any music game; What other Wii instruments will be compatible with Guitar Hero World Tour?

David Nathanielsz: Guitar Hero World Tour is compatible with Wii guitars from Guitar Hero III and Aerosmith.

The Wiire: Another often asked question is: will Wii owners ever get access to the collections of songs on the first and second versions of Guitar Hero?

David Nathanielsz: We know there are a lot of songs from earlier versions of Guitar Hero that never made it to the Wii, and we are definitely looking into ways of getting that content available for Wii gamers.

We'd like to thank David for taking the time to talk with us. With exclusive Wii modes, new create-a-song aspect, and same online functionality as the other console versions of the game, I think it's safe to say that Guitar Hero: World Tour is going to be rocking many Wii's this Holiday Season.