- Teaches you guitar and it’s fun!
- Use any electric guitar in the game
- Guitarcade is a blast
- Guitar that comes with the bundle
is poor quality
- Too much time spent tuning the guitar and waiting at menu
screens
- DLC price is steep and not as expansive as Rock Band
- No bass support...yet
Be
notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out
twice weekly.
Enter
E-Mail Address Below:
Rocksmith
Score:8.5 / 10
Prior to playing Rocksmith (RS), I had
never played guitar in my life; unless you count the one’s with the
plastic buttons used in Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Rock Band 3 dabbled
in teaching players guitar, but the results were mixed as the tabulature
was confusing and the tutorials were not very fun. I’ve already been let
down with Rock Band’s attempt to teach me guitar, so how does RS fair?
RS can be bought as the stand alone game with the tone cable or you can
buy the bundle which includes an electric guitar. The bundle retails for
$199.00 and isn’t a bad bargain, however, the guitar that comes with the
game is a lower quality
Epiphone model. If you’ve already got an
electric guitar lying around, you’re better off skipping the bundle and
purchasing just the game.
RS isn’t so much a party game, as it is more of a teaching tool. RS goes
over a lot of guitar techniques including slides, bends, tremelo’s, and
chords. The game features technique challenges that let you hone your
skill and earn
Advertisement
bronze, silver and gold medals. In addition
to the technique challenges, RS features several mini games (also known
as the Guitarcade) which, are both fun and let you practice guitar
techniques. This is truly where RS strikes gold as the mini games are a
blast and at the same time you’re improving your playing. This is where
Rock Band could learn from RS. I usually make it a ritual to play a few
mini games when I first boot up the game prior to starting the career
mode.
RS catalog features 60 or so songs from Artists including Eric Clapton,
the Rolling Stones, Nirvana and Muse. The setlist is varied and there
are some terrific song choices. Each week or two, new songs are released
through the playstation network, but the price for each song is quite
steep. Each song retails for $3.00, which is one dollar more than what
Rock Band offers each week.
RS offers multiplayer for up to two players on the same console.
Unfortunately, the multiplayer experience is quite limited. None of the
mini games or career mode can be played with two players, which is a
disappointment. It would have also been nice to have the option of one
player playing lead guitar, while the other plays rhythm guitar for each
song. it would have even been nice if you could play bass guitar in the
game. It’s nice to know the developers have hinted at this option in the
future.
The game’s primary mode is the career, which sees you play through gigs
consisting of a setlist of 3-5 songs. You’ll start off playing in local
clubs and work your way to up to becoming a headlining band playing
arenas. Prior to playing each event, you’re required to beat a certain
score in each song. The game breaks down each song and lets you practice
particular parts of the it until you become proficient.
One new thing RS brings to the table is dynamic difficulty. The
difficulty of each song is dependent on how well you play. The better
you play, the more notes the game throws at you, whereas the worse you
play, the less notes you’ll see. The dynamic difficulty is terrific and
is a nice departure from selecting easy, medium or hard difficulty seen
in other music games.
I played RS using external audio speakers, rather than having my sound
go through an HDMI cable. If you’re planning on using anything other
than external audio speakers you’re probably going to experience audio
lag, which may impact your experience. I didn’t really notice any lag
through my setup and the game’s instruction manual recommends playing
through a sound system.
One thing you’ll become too familiar with in RS is tuning your guitar.
Before you can do anything in the game, you have to tune your guitar.
Tuning is fairly easy and straightforward. However, the tuning can get
on your nerves as you literally have to tune your guitar in between each
song (unless you’re playing a setlist). In addition to that, you’ll
spend a lot of time waiting for the game to save and load items. I don’t
understand why it takes so long to load the game as Rock Band 3 takes no
time to load and I have over 900 songs in my catalog.
RS is a great teaching tool, but your experience is going to depend on
how committed you are to learning guitar. RS won’t turn you into a
shredding Jimmy Hendrix overnight, but if you commit to practicing each
day you’re going to see results. Even if you’re an experienced guitar
player, you’re probably going to find something to like in RS.
