Interviews// Godfather Blackhand Producer: Joel Wade

SPOnG: How far have you taken the gesture implementation on the Wii? Is the remote simply used for combat or is it used for further control mechanics?

Joel Wade: We used gestures wherever we thought they made the most sense for the game. Some simple examples include twisting your right hand to open doors, and honking the car horn by pushing your left hand forward, but for the most part they are combat-based. To make the combat gestures successful we needed to make them both simple and intuitive to perform, and thus easy to remember.

The approach we decided to take was to completely re-work the melee system and make the Nunchuk act as an extension of the player’s left hand while the Wii Remote would represent the player’s right hand. Forward jabs and hooks are your basic moves, but you can also perform more powerful moves like the overhead smash by swinging the Nunchuck and Wii together, or charging power attacks by using a button modifier in conjunction with swings.

Some of the most unique and satisfying moves however, are the vicious grab attacks. By “grabbing” the two triggers (one in each hand), you can essentially grab your enemy by his lapels. Once grabbed, you can keep swinging with both fists or use the environment to your advantage with wall and table slams. You can also swing and throw enemies around by moving both controllers left or right and releasing the triggers to send them flying across the room.

What’s more, when you bring out a club or crowbar you can perform different melee weapon attacks by swinging the Wii remote in different directions. Now you can even keep the beat-down going with your club while grabbing them!

Finally, all our firearm aiming is performed with the Wii remote (in two different modes: free-aim and lock-on). We still have standard target-locking, but by modifying your aim with the Wii remote, you can quickly make precision shots like disarming a guy in the shoulder, dropping him with a hit to the knee, or taking him out with a single headshot. As an added bonus you can quickly reload your pump-action shotgun by moving the Nunchuk up and down, or place a new “magazine” in your handgun by moving the Nunchuk to the right.

SPOnG: Will you be offering downloadable content via PlayStation Network or WiiConnect24?

We’re definitely hoping to utilize the PlayStation network and the PS3’s built-in hard drive to provide some downloadable content in the near future, but don’t currently have any plans to use WiiConnect24.

Joel Wade: Working on a vast range of consoles for The Godfather, in your experience what do you like most about the 360, Wii and PS3?

Each definitely has its fair share of quirks and advantages, and is fun to work with in different ways. Obviously developing for the Wii is all about taking advantage of its truly innovative controllers. For the Xbox 360, the development environment and online backbone that Microsoft has provided are great tools for us that make it a pleasure to develop for. Sony’s PS3 has a very complicated but exciting and powerful architecture that we’ve just begun to explore. Ultimately our challenge is to provide a great entertainment experience for any platform and to exploit their various advantages as much as possible.