Rocksmith Guitar and Bass - Playstation 3

After years of loving music, I decided that I would try to play music.To that end, I bought a cheap fender guitar and amp setup from amazon with some extra cash I had around Christmas. I don't know if you've ever had the sensation, but having a guitar, sitting there looking at you and you don't know what to do with it is a funny feeling. I had picked it up, and tried to mess around with the included teaching disc, but it was worthless.A month and a half later, after doing some research, I found one of the coolest games ever, Rocksmith. Buying this thing, and plunging it in opened a new dimension for me. The game demystifies playing the guitar. If you are completely un-musical like I had been, it is there to help you. The game levels itself to what you know.For example, if all you know is putting your left hand on one fret, and you just strum the one low, string, the game will let you do that until the cows come home.But then it will start to add variation. Perhaps you will play that same string, but you will change frets; maybe you will stay on the same fret but on a higher string. Before you know it, you're playing music. I really can't have higher praise for this game.Maybe I can. There's a mode for bass. Though the instrument is very similar, the playing styles are different. Just plug in, and you can learn the bass too. There's a sequel coming out, and I can't wait. I haven't liked a game this much since the original _Fable_ five years ago.Sadly, there are some problems. You have to supplement what you are learning in the game with some outside guidance. Otherwise, you start talking about the "Red" string where you're really talking about the low E string and no one will know what you're talking about. In terms of getting your hands on the frets and picking at them, this is a minor inconvenience (not A minor).I can give this game such high praise for one reason. Until today, I haven't been able to play it for almost two months. I moved, and where it worked in the apartment I was in, there is some electrical issue in my new house. The game buzzed with no fix. I tried moving it around, and buying a new cord, but it didn't work. I couldn't play it, and that made me angry. I have never been angry that I couldn't play a game, but this one made me super mad. I finally moved the whole kit in the basement to see what was up. My guitar still has a problem, which must be some sort of internal electronic issue, but my bass was fine. I played through the bass mode for a couple of hours this morning, just happy it worked. Both of my hands hurt, but it is worth it. I'm sad though. My wife came home and complained that the TV was no longer in the living room and I moved everything upstairs.I already miss it. This is such an awesome game (with a new version coming out even!) that I like it so much I'm going to drop three hundred bucks or so for a new TV so I can keep the set-up that worked this morning. That's real money for me, but it is worth it. The only problem is that it was money that was going to go to a new Epiphone Wildkat guitar. I just have to pace myself.

A disclaimer right off the bat is that I've played a reasonable amount of guitar. I'm not happy with where my skills are, but I'm certainly not new to the instrument, and maybe not the target audience of this game. I took a chance buying the game hoping that it would provide some more entertaining practice both in songs I would never learn on my own as well as technique challenges and guitarcade games. In that sense, the game has succeeded in that I find the guitarcade games relatively fun. They're clearly not the focus of the game, but they have enough polish that it provides a challenging but still entertaining way to practice finding your way around the fretboard.Where the game fails in my opinion is in the primary goals of the game, which is learning to play complete songs. First, there's something to be questioned about throwing tablature on the screen in sync with the full song as the primary learning system. For many simple songs this works well, but as the career mode and songs become more complex, it is frustrating that the first play through seems so incredibly sink or swim. The game will bump down difficulty as advertised and is often a very functional part of the game, but I can't help but feel that it would be more efficient to allow for the player to look through a chord list for the song rather than turn a chord progression into a section of single notes.People who have played the game will immediately look to point out the game's built in riff repeater, which allows for players to practice specific parts of songs. This is a good idea but it also brings me to my major criticism part 2. The "rocksmith suggests" interface in career mode is awful. Absolutely awful. Why? "Rocksmith suggests" is a short list of things the game thinks you should do. What seems like a good idea becomes a problem in that as soon as you score high enough on a song, it disappears from the list forever. For me, quite frequently this meant that I'd have to back out to a full song list organized alphabetically in order to access the riff repeater function for a song because I had done too well to keep it on my suggestions list.I fully understand that Rocksmith is made for newer players, but I was able to "pass" many of the songs on the first play through leaving me with either the suggestion to move on to the next song or play the venue. To make the game more accessible to a broader range of players, (or simply make it a better game,) the career mode should be organized by a simple venue organized song list (like that of guitar hero, rock band, etc) with the capacity to select riff repeater, a chord overview, etc from that list. If this was possible, I wouldn't even care that somehow finishing a song at 70% is sufficient apparently to play at the local club, because I could more easily access each song, view my high scores for each, and play the venue when I felt I was ready too. Instead the game seems to want to push me along and thus leave in my wake many butchered covers. (Also, unlocking encore songs and then being forced to play it live on my first view of the music is a terrible system as well.)All of that said, its frustrating to see a game that has so much potential that is undermined by the career mode menu and organization when so many successful variations exist (literally see any other music rhythm game.) Did it get my guitar back in my hands excited for something new? Sure. Does it make learning new songs fun? Sort of. Does it compel you to practice songs until you *actually* can sound like a rockstar? For me, absolutely not.

I love playing guitar and i love games but not this game it starts off at that low of a skill level that i was bored to death with it in no time i just couldn't get into it

Great guitar learning tool on the one hand, and great guitar-computer interface on the other.