Interviews// EIF 07: Interview With RedOctane's Zach Fountain

SPOnG: What about DS? Any plans to bring Guitar Hero to DS?

Zach Fountain: [Grins] We would love to be on that platform! We haven’t announced anything but it’s obviously been a hugely successful platform and we would love to bring the franchise to the DS.


SPOnG: What else have you improved with GH III?

Zach Fountain: There’s a huge step forward in the guitar – not only is it wireless, but it’s much higher quality, we’ve made a big investment in improving the guitar controller… it’s got a customisable face-plate (shows us a 'The Who'-style Union Jack faceplate) and (magically pulling guitar from bag in two parts, while fitting them together and handing it over) you can just feel for yourself how much better it feels. Stick it over your shoulders, feel how much weightier it feels. (I do. It does!)

So people seem to be getting pretty excited about the opportunities to customise their guitars – both the faceplate and the neck are fully customisable – and the portability is also a real bonus. You can see here that I’m carrying two of the guitars in a pretty small bag.


SPOnG: What can you tell us about new tracks in the game?

Zach Fountain: Well the track-listing in the game has a much more global appeal, in that it’s not so much American rock focused this time around. We’ve put a ton of effort to have greater European affinity in the song list as well, so many more of the artists are from the UK and Europe… or we’re using American songs that have a strong European appeal.

We’ve announced the Stone Roses’ track today and we’ll be announcing some more next week at Leipzig, which we think you’ll be quite impressed and surprised by. The Stone Roses’ tune is just the tip of the iceberg, believe me.

Each track has to meet a specific criteria, having appealing solos and so on obviously… but we’ve also found with the downloadable packs that it’s not just buying them for songs that you know, but playing them… and in playing them you do become exposed to music that you may well not have heard. It’s also no coincidence, to me, that the guitar is more popular in Britain than it ever has been before!


SPOnG: There was some moaning from certain quarters about the pricing of the downloadable song packs last time around with GH II on 360, wasn’t there?

Zach Fountain: Well, to date there has been around half a million Guitar Hero downloads, so I think the consumer has spoken and seems to think the pricing is fair. I would say that we have a few considerations to make a few changes with downloadables for Guitar Hero III – we’re not necessarily going to change the model, but we may add new availability of songs and new ways to purchase them.


SPOnG: Will there be any songs or anything exclusive to either the PS3 or 360 versions?

Zach Fountain: I can’t talk about anything exclusive to either platform at this point.


SPOnG: What about getting bands and artists involved more?

Zach Fountain: Well, that’s much greater this time around. In the past it’s been ‘just contribute a song’ but as the franchise has become so more successful now, they are participating in more interesting and exciting ways. So, as well as in the game, expect to see them at live events and contributing signed guitars and doing more appearances and signings and so on. They love the game, so you’ll see their involvement at a much higher level with GH III.


SPOnG: Okay, and with that in mind, how are the boss battles going to work in the game?

Zach Fountain: Well you can take on any number of ‘bosses’ or famous guitarists, such as Slash and others, or another player you are competing with. So, as you store up star power, you basically unleash an attack on the other player – and there are a number of attacks, so you could break one of their strings, you can force them to play left-handed, you can amp-overload their screen making it harder for them to play, you can break their whammy-bar… in total there are seven or eight different attacks, so that’s a new way to compete with someone, which is a lot of fun.

The power-up feature plays in a similar way to many other videogame conventions – in that you pick up a power-up and decide when you want to use it, in a very similar way to games such as Mario Kart, for example. It adds a whole new element of Deliverance-style duelling!

You can also play co-op both online and all the way through the career mode in the game now, which is something that many of our consumers wanted, so we’re giving it to them.


SPOnG: Which other rock gods, other than Slash, are in there?

Zach Fountain: Yeah, Slash has even recorded his own track for the game and has been fully motion-captured. We can’t announce who else is going to feature in the game right now.


SPOnG: How have you changed the look and the aesthetic of the game?

Zach Fountain: Well, it’s the first time that the game has been built from the ground up for next-gen, high definition technology. It just looks lovely, basically.


SPOnG: Lastly, not to keep banging on about Rock Band, but EA has stressed the fact that they have all the original versions of the tunes as opposed to the ‘as made famous by’ versions.

Zach Fountain: Well, we have that too. Not all the tunes this time around are ‘as made famous by’ and there are a much higher percentage of original tunes this time around. Also, what’s quite exciting, is that some of our artists have actually re-recorded some of their tracks for GH III.


SPOnG: Okay, well that's really good to know. Finally, following the Stone Roses’ announcement and sticking with our favourite Manchester bands, are you going to put any New Order or Happy Mondays tunes in there for us?

Zach Fountain: They’ve not yet been announced. But watch this space.


SPOnG: Excellent. We will. Very much looking forward to it now. Cheers!