1. buddashak

   10

   I've spent roughly 10 of the last 30 hours playing Rocksmith , have over 10 songs with over 85% mastery, mostly songs I'd never heard before, and can now say that this game is the bee's knees for anyone that plays guitar for fun regularly. Don't listen to all the people that say this is more of a tutorial than a game... at higher levels of play it's really just like playing guitar hero with your actual guitar. Regarding the auto-difficulty: At first I didn't feel like the difficulty was amping up fast enough, but then I realized after listening to some replays that this was because of my sloppy technique. For me this usually comes from missed palm mutes, missed harmonics, half-pressed barre chords, and brain farts. Once I got dialed in and actually started playing with precision the game would ramp up the difficulty and mastery level pretty fast. To all the reviewers complaining about the difficulty not going up fast enough (*cough* joystiq *cough*) I'm pretty sure its because you're not as good of a guitar player as you think you are. Rocksmith only gives you what you've earned. You wouldn't expect a mario game to give you access to world 8 just because you can half-a$$ your way through world 4, why should Rocksmith be any different? The lag when the ps3 audio is hooked straight to your stereo is equal to a good latency midi setup, meaning you can sense it if you're really trying hard but it's not enough to effect your playing. The interface is nice and easy to read when not cluttered... when you get to the higher levels of mastery it's another story, but if you're capable of getting to the higher levels then you're no doubt relying on your ear and memory more than what's on the screen, so it doesn't really matter The one thing that sucks is the total lack of streamlining. For example, I prefer to have my songs sorted by artist, but every time you go to the song list it resets to being sorted by title. This wouldn't bug me if you could change the sorting with a button press, but it's not. Also, whenever a song finishes the game automatically loads up the replay, thereby unloading the song. This means if you want to play the song again you have to wait for the replay to load, and then pick "play again", and then wait for the song to load up again. In other words, you end up doing a lot of waiting. Also, the two rap-rock songs are really bad.… Expand

   • Helpful?

     6 of 6 users said yes
2. icarus1080

   10

   After just a few minutes of playing Rocksmith, you'll find that you don't even want to describe it as a game. Rocksmith is an amazing piece of guitar teaching software. It will literally hold your hand, and walk you through step by step how to perform the basics, enhance your techniques, and ultimately play every song in it's library with style and precision. The career mode isn't the most flashy that we've seen in a guitar game, but all the elements that make it enjoyable are there, and doing well is extremely gratifying. Messing up is a unique learning experience, as you see the upcoming notes simplify before your eyes when the game's dynamic difficulty adjusts to your apparant skill, and something inside you musters even more determination to succeed next time. Aside from the career mode, you can browse almost the entire song library from the start, accessing different play options for each, such as the option to practice specific parts of a song that might be giving you trouble in performance. There are also challenges to complete relating to a vast array of guitar playing techniques, which you can also find in the individual song options, showing you what you need to be proficient in to perform it with mastery. Then there is the Guitarcade, a section of mini games that further test both your basic and advanced technique with puzzles, skill games and other creative and entertaining activities, all using the guitar as your controller. In amp editing mode, you can customize a rack of guitar pedals based on what you've unlocked in career mode, save multiple presets, and assign them to the face buttons of your Dualshock for quick effects changes during your rehearsal or performance. The only imperfection about Rocksmith is the minuscule latency in the sound of your guitar through the speakers, but even with more complex arrangements of notes at faster speeds we experienced no problem enjoying the game, feeling like things were in sync, or missing notes due to the barely noticeable lag. It's hardly worth mentioning at all, considering what amazing benefits this software offers to anyone who owns it. Rocksmith is a masterwork of educational software like nothing the world has ever seen. It is the Rosetta stone of guitar lessons. For $79 (plus your guitar), this is the best thing money can buy for an aspiring guitarist, or an experienced player looking to perfect their technique. If you spend time with Rocksmith, you WILL learn to play the guitar well, period.… Expand

   • Helpful?

     6 of 9 users said yes
3. FriedConsole

   6

   This game is fun and it would be a great teaching tool, however, as a more experienced guitarist I find it frustratingly boring to get to a point where it just displays how to play the whole song instead of a simplified version. There doesn't seem to be an option to just play the song as it originally was recorded. I think it might not be able to pick up too many notes at a fast pace and it is never going to be the entire song. It often harder to play a simplified version of songs I already know how to play. Good thing it is very generous on the timing of notes. You have a +/- of a whole second to hit the appropriate note to register it. I can see that being good for beginners but I think a lot of people will learn these songs really incorrectly. For mini-games they actually turn off the generous timing so it become frustrating with the delay of your setup. I appreciate the generous timing when I have to go through songs I hate or have never heard before. You can just fumble through it the first time and never have to play it again. Seems to be a lot of modern hipster songs for the kids. I think most people, even kids, want to play the classic riffs instead of these artists that nobody will remember in 3 years. Overall I wish this was available to me when I was 12 and could learn guitar at a faster rate. As an experienced guitarist, it bores me too much to want to setup everything for me to play.… Expand

   • Helpful?

     0 of 2 users said yes

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