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Shacknews Goes Hands-On with Guitar Hero: On Tour, Interviews Vicarious Visions CEO Karthik Bala

Akira_EX | June 01, 2008 | Previews | DS 
Recently, Chris Faylor of Shacknews was at a Guitar Hero event, where he was able to demo the Vicarious Visions-developed and Activision-published Guitar Hero: On Tour. The event was attended by industry press, and the collective taping and scratch on the game led Faylor believe that this will be a quality addition to the series after all.

Faylor reports that Guitar Hero: On Tour will have the series' difficulty intact and appropriately balanced, while lauding the game's new Duel-Mode, derivative of Guitar Hero III's Battle Mode. The item-based duel mode will be more skillful than the random and luck-heavy battle mode of its predecessor.

In the resulting interview with Vicarious Visions CEO Karthik Bala, they discuss the game's production and the Guitar Grip peripheral that will ship in the game, and slot in the DS's GBA slot. The game came into fruition through the collaborative effort of Vicarious Visions, Activision and Nintendo.

Curiously though:
quote
As Bala puts it, the whole thing came out of the Vicarious staff playing around to "see if it was even possible to do a really good music rhythm game on a handheld.

?
No one asked Vicarious Visions to make Guitar Hero for the Nintendo DS. No one at studio owner Activision, fellow Activision subsidiary RedOctane, or Nintendo believed it was even possible.

"People thought it was ludicrous," Vicarious CEO Karthik Bala told me at a Guitar Hero event earlier this week. "It was never in the plan to do that."

As Bala puts it, the whole thing came out of the Vicarious staff playing around to "see if it was even possible to do a really good music rhythm game on a handheld." Twenty-three prototypes and a few cardboard guitars later, a breakthrough came in the form of a "crazy Frankenstein GBA cartridge" wired with fret buttons.

Activision and RedOctane thought it was insane. And when the first prototype was presented to Nintendo, Bala says they were stunned.

But the really, really amazing part? For all the unwieldy-looking peripherals and wacky ads, the Nintendo DS entry, Guitar Hero: On Tour, really is Guitar Hero. It works. It's fun. In fact, I think it does some things better than the console editions of Guitar Hero 3

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  • 0 thumbs!
    On Vacation | June 01, 2008
    I dunno man, The best thing about GH was the slightly realistic Guitar and making you think you're in an actual band rocking out to the world.

    No guitar on the DS, And it'll just not be the same, I get the feeling that the way you have to strum will remind me of ticking off answers in a test, too ):

    I'll probably still get it though *fanboy*
    • 0 thumbs!
      On Vacation | June 01, 2008
      However, though.. maybe if they add the feature of struming individual strings on the guitar, It could add an extra element of difficulty not possible on current GH guitars..

      Hmm, probably won't be included though.
  • 0 thumbs!
    Benedict | June 02, 2008
    You could of edited On Vacation....

    Anyway, GHOT sound like a good game XD I need to find a relese date.

    Oh yes, it GH3 on the Wii yet?
  • 0 thumbs!
    AT_AG | June 02, 2008
    ghot is something i will probably get beacuse gh3 on wii is horrible in comparision with 360 and seeing as i only have wii ill get it like this for vacations and running around town with my parents

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