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Rocksmith: Authentic Guitar Games
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Graphics & Sound:
Rocksmith is here, with your chance to become a rockstar. No, really. Rocksmith has what it takes to teach you to play the guitar... the rest is up to your own ambition.
While Rocksmith ships with 48 songs, I wasn't very familiar with many of the songs, but if you're familiar with a lot of the songs, you're likely to enjoy the game more. On the upside, all of these songs are more interesting to play than the children's songs, folk songs and technical pieces that most books designed to teach music usually feature. See the link below for official list of tracks that ship with the game.
A decent variety of music comes on the disc, but is limited to 48 songs. This is far fewer than most of the guitar / rock games out there, but then, this actually can teach you to play these songs. For real. Additional music will be available as DLC later.
The adapter's cord is a nice length, about ten feet long; I could just barely play while sitting on my couch on the other side of the room if I wanted to, but the guitar wasn't very comfortable that way. I found myself pulling a bar-stool in from the other room to sit on.
The graphics look good, with realistic looking guitars, equipment and venues. I liked the way the crowds were handled, as well; the people in the crowd are animated, but their appearance was taken from either video or photographs, so they're very realistic looking.
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Gameplay:
Across the nation, parties and living rooms were taken over by Guitar Hero, then Rockband... Now, there's Rocksmith, and all those parties are now going to be rocking to... well, Guitar Hero and Rockband, I suppose...
Rocksmith is not about playing a game with all of your friends; it's about actually learning to play the guitar. First, you use an actual instrument. Not a toy, not a musical controller, but an off-the-shelf electric guitar. If the guitar has a standard audio jack, you can use it. For that matter, if it's not an electric, you can go to a music store and purchase an electric pickup that will work with an acoustic guitar.
The second thing that keeps Rocksmith from displacing other games as the party game king is that the game is geared toward one player, and only allows up to two players to play at the same time.
The first thing you'll do is identify the type of guitar you have and whether you play left or right-handed. Then you tune your guitar. The tuner application is pretty cool looking, and works well, but be careful - there's a timer that activates when you get "in range" that will stop the tuning for a given string - and will do so even if it's close, but not dead-on. If you're a stickler for accuracy (or have a good ear for pitch and playing with the tuning slightly off will drive you batty), then you'll want to quickly dial the tuning in exactly before that timer expires. If you don't have the time you need, you can always go to the tuner again, though. Also, each time you start to play something new (whether it be song or mini-game), you'll be asked to strum each string to verify you're still in tune. If your guitar has gotten out of tune, you'll use the tuner again. You can also access it directly from the menu, in case you ever want to re-tune.
Doing well on a song unlocks a new effects pedal. (Collect them all). You can play around with your effects pedals and fashion your own sound and just jam, if you like. Pre, loop and post processing pedals - a place for three of each. Also can select different Amps with two unlocked at the beginning. You also unlock venues as you play through.
As of this writing, the only DLC available is 400 credits and merely unlocks all of the pedals for you; if you're really wanting to play around with a sound now, it might be worth it, but the rate that the pedals can be earned seems about right to me - this way you're not overwhelmed. |
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Difficulty:
It can be fun to jump right in and play songs that you like, but if you find yourself in over your head, try doing whatever " Rocksmith Recommends;" there's some powerful A.I. in this game that does a great job of spoon-feeding and hand-holding you along. Unlike most music games, replaying a song doesn't necessarily mean you'll see the same part; as you're getting the hang of the part, Rocksmith will be slowly but surely increasing the difficulty.
Rocksmith features Guitarcade - a collection of mini-games to help you work on different aspects of playing the guitar. For example, it can be quite tricky, at first, to get the correct fret (especially when trying to quickly change from one to another), but Ducks (in Guitarcade) helps train you to do just that. Guitarcade has some interesting and fun mini-games, including a puzzle game is used to teach sliding and a baseball game is used to teach bending.
There's a Techniques section that allows you to practice the various techniques that are used in the game. Also, the Chord Book shows how to play the chords used in the song of your choice, but these chords are commonly used chords, so learn them by name and you'll be able to use them in a variety of songs.
As they say, practice makes perfect. The most important thing is to keep at it and put some time in regularly. If you keep at it, you will see improvement. |
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Game Mechanics:
When I tried out Rocksmith at E3 2011, there were issues with notes bending when I wasn't trying to bend them. With my Ovation guitar, however, I had no problems with this. The control was spot-on. I only had to tune my Ovation once, at the beginning of my play session, and then again when songs required a different tuning, but your mileage may vary.
The adaptive difficulty level works very well, keeping you on your toes, but backing off if you can't handle the heat. Progression can go along at a decent clip, as long as you're heeding the recommendations. The idea of using a standard electric guitar is great, and the adapter does a great job of determining what you're playing quickly enough to give you feedback of where you should be. The hardware works very well and the game's interface works well with it. The interface is a bit complex, but then, so is playing the guitar.
The only part I had issues with were the chords. They are displayed in a box, with all of the fingerings (and open strums) boxed in together and the name of the chord next to the box. If you know how to play the chord, you're good, but it seems like there should be another part to the game that actually teaches you the chords, walking your through the fingering of each of the chords. The Techniques exercise walks you through E and D in the overview, but when you play through the exercise, they'll throw others at you as well (I've seen C, but I haven't gotten very far with this exercise). The Guitarcade's Dawn of the Chordead is the closest thing I've seen, and it's not bad, but you're dealing with a time limit. Time limits are great for working on transitions once you've learned how to play a chord, but not very helpful when you're trying to learn it to begin with. I wish they had something that would "walk you through" each of the different chords at a slow pace, to make it easier to get familiar with them.
In the package, you get the Real Tone guitar-to-USB adapter (ten foot long cord), the game software and a sheet with two sets of stickers for helping to show where key frets are. There are dots built onto the top and side of most fretboards for this same purpose, but if the ambiguous dots don't quite do it for you, the stickers with their identifying number should help you get the hang of which fret is which. As I mentioned above, the version I reviewed didn't come with a guitar; I provided my own. There is, however, a version that comes bundled with an Epiphone "Junior" guitar, which would be a perfect Christmas gift for the aspiring rocker on your list. Another good idea might be some headphones to go along with it; they not only keep others from having to hear prospective rockers in their "early" stage, but also can reduce the performance anxiety in some less than extroverted would-be players. Ubisoft actually sent along a pair of Astro Gaming A30s (along with a pair of A30 ear tags with the Rocksmith logo on them) and an Astro Gaming MixAmp for use in reviewing the game. I can't speak highly enough of these headphones or the MixAmp (see the links to my A30 and MixAmp reviews, below), but I didn't actually use them during my review, since I wanted to make sure the game worked well without them. Rocksmith plays well without headphones, but if you really crank up the sound (and speakers are pointed at your guitar), you may have some issues with feedback or simply too much gain. Playing with headphones would remove this problem, so if you find you have problems with feedback - or if you merely want to accessorize, headphones would be a good idea.
As it stands, Rocksmith: Authentic Guitar Games does a good job of teaching how to play a guitar. The chords will take some work on your part, but it's definitely achievable. It's not going to be a hit at parties like the music games that came before it, but, with some practice and perseverance, perhaps you can actually play with the band at your next party... which somehow makes up for it, doesn't it?
*Note: The only multiplayer option is split-screen, but I don't know anyone else with the adapter, so I was unable to try this feature out. |
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-Geck0, GameVortex Communications AKA Robert Perkins |
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