Rocksmith 2014 Edition – Xbox 360 (Cable Included)
- A PROVEN METHOD TO LEARN GUITAR FAST National research studies have found that Rocksmith is the fastest way to learn guitar*. Over 95% of players have improved their skills. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned player, Rocksmith gets you results, fast.*National study by Research Media Group Inc.
- A REIMAGINED EXPERIENCE Newly redesigned menus and in-game interfaces are now clear, smooth, and blazing fast. It’s never been easier to play along and get feedback on your performance as you go.
- LEARN YOUR FAVORITE SONGS Select from over 50 hit tracks, ranging from alternative rock, to heavy metal, and more. You will learn to play your favorite songs, step-by-step and note-for-note, with tutorials along the way.
- DESIGNED FOR EASE AND SPEED A new fully-customizable Riff Repeater lets you select your section, difficulty, and speed on-the-fly. Master Mode has been revamped to make learning by memory more approachable.
- GET PLUGGED IN Rocksmith 2014 Edition is compatible with the original Rocksmith Real Tone Cable that plugs any real guitar** directly into Xbox 360, PS3, PC, or Mac. **Guitar requires standard 1/4″ output jack.
Rocksmith 2014 Edition – Xbox 360 (Cable Included)
Rocksmith 2014 Edition X360 Rocksmith teaches you fast and effectively by letting you plug any real guitar or bass*. Rocksmith becomes your personal teacher as it monitors how you play, dynamically adjusts the difficulty to your skill level, then slowly introduces more notes and phrases until you’re playing your favorite songs note-for-note. *Requires 1/4″ output jack – cable included.
•A REIMAGINED EXPERIENCE Newly redesigned menus and
List Price: $ 59.99
Price:
Don’t be misled by the word “game”,
Everyone is talking about Session Mode and I’m sure that will be a big selling point for people that already know how to play. For me, a beginning bassist, it’s nice to have the band backing, but randomly hitting notes when you have no real idea of what you are doing is cool but I’m sure once I get the hang of playing, this part of the game will be much more enjoyable.
If you want to learn to play, get this. I am doing bass only but I am sure the guitar play works the same way. I am using the Lessons and here is how they are laid out:
You first choose your instrument and click Lessons if you are a noob like me. The first couple show you how to hold the instrument and things like that. Then you start getting videos of different techniques and each of those lessons comes with a practice track. Here is where Rocksmith shines! Using the Riff Repeater feature, you can adjust the difficulty level from 0-100 using a slider: the lower the difficulty, the fewer notes that will scroll on by. If you start at say, 30, you can play that difficulty until you nail all of the notes and then move up to 40 and so on until you reach 100 which is all of the notes.
But that is not all. In addition to choosing the difficulty level, you can also use a slider to increase/decrease the speed. So if you want all notes but really slow, you can have that. If you want fast but fewer notes to play, then you can have that and everything in between. You can also loop the tracks so you play it a couple of times instead of just one, or you can have an infinite loop and the track will rewind and begin again until you stop it. You can pause and ramp up the difficulty and go right back into the track. If you overstep your ability, just pause, open Riff Repeater and readjust as you need to.
This is really an educational package for the Xbox rather than a game but it’s amazing. I received it on launch day from Amazon and have been strictly using the Practice tracks in the Lessons and working on the Walking Bass lines in there at slow speed with fewer notes. I’ve inched up the meters a few times but need to master the level that I’m at now before moving on. Playing the track in an infinite loop has me playing it over and over and over and over again and I can feel my fingers beginning to stretch out and get more comfortable moving around the fingerboard.
The idea that you can plug in that guitar that’s collecting dust rather than having to purchase special instruments to play with this game makes it such a worthwhile buy. It will be frustrating in the beginning if you’ve never played before (I know the feeling very well) but you really do find yourself saying “I’ll never get this” and then all of a sudden you nail it and get such a rush. Then you add a few more notes, up the speed a little and get that too and you can’t pull yourself away from playing because you realize that you can do it.
I have had DVD tutorials for bass and while good, they don’t provide the instant feedback that Rocksmith does. The presentation in this game is lightyears ahead of the original. Loading times are fast and the options were created to accommodate learners of all kinds and proficient players as well.
I just can’t say enough about this “game.” It’s just amazing, fun, and really teaches you to play. While there is no substitute for a real teacher and learning theory and the like, if you are just a hobbyist looking to learn to play some songs and jam out on a real guitar, this is definitely for you.
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|Pure bliss for an intimidated noob,
Rocksmith came with
– USB plug from guitar to my 360
– 6 ft HDMI cable
– An audio adapter for the 360
– An audio cable
Lucky for me my 360 is plugged into a receiver via HDMI so the only cable I needed to use was the USB plug from guitar to XBox.
First thing I had to do was tune my guitar. Rocksmith walked me through it and checked the tones for me (good thing for a tone deaf guy). The cool thing (for me at least) was that the software knew the problem before I did. If I hit the wrong string, it knew and told me to check which string I hit.
So I went through about 5 tutorials and tried to 100% them. The tutorials are excellent. It starts easy…if you can’t get it, then it slows it down to get you used to moving across the frets and strings in time. For a noob like me, this was great. The game amazed me when it told me exactly what I was doing wrong in the tutorials (ie: wrong string, wrong fret…it knew). After you get through the first test, it does the same riff with more notes and complexities. It allowed me to practice and have a sense of success before it upped the level.
You can choose to play lead guitar, rhythm, or bass. You can use your electric guitar for bass, but I have not tried yet. I have only tried lead guitar so far but plan on trying the others.
There are 20 or so more lessons to do, but I was interested in trying a song (knowing I would fail). Low and behold, they actually up the level of play on each song as you improve. So the first time through the easier songs was not impossible even for me to achieve some success. I felt like “I can actually do this with some practice”.
The part I recently tried was the guitarcade which is awesome. Retro style arcade games that work on your guitar technique. The first game is similar to jet pack joyride, but based solely on how loud you strum the strings and control the volume. The next game is like the old Root Beer Tapper game but you have to hit the right string to “shoot” down the right area. I had trouble with volume and finding strings and these were fantastic ways to practice. It includes high scores, mini achievements, and online rankings. I also tried the slide arcade and a duck shooting game that helps practice slides, frets and strings. There are many more arcade games that I have not tried because I don’t know the concept (ie: bending) yet. Some games are more fun than others, but the fun and rewarding way to practice is top notch.
The main thing this does not do is teach you to play guitar by reading sheet music. That was not important to me, but worth noting.
We try and limit video game play for our kids, but this game is so educational that we bend the rules and let our kids play Rocksmith at times when they normally are not allowed to play games.
I highly recommend this game for anyone who wants to learn to play a real guitar for fun. It provides learning, fun, and a sense of accomplishment. It will provide our family many hours of fun time together.
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|Total Beginner’s Review,
But first a tip: turn off voice commands (under options). For those people that are finding this game glitchy…me, too — until I realized the game was picking up random sounds and interpreting them as commands and switching screens on me.
The Good
For the cost of a couple of guitar lessons you get a pretty cool game that resembles Guitar Hero. There’s a boat load of songs and tons of instructional lessons on technique. For the price, that’s worth it right there.
Starting out, it’s really fun. The strings each have a different color and you can successfully play along and feel pretty good about learning and about your ability to be a potentially good guitar player.
The Riff Repeater is awesome. You can take a part of the song and adjust the speed and difficulty and it will loop over and over to help you really get good. Love this feature.
The Bad
Progression – I would say that there are no songs on here that you can master as a beginner. I suppose that’s OK but kinda discouraging. In the beginning, you start out having a song where you have to play a single string every ten seconds – which is a bit too easy for even the worst beginner. And then out of nowhere, a chord will appear. But that’s usually OK – you can figure it out. But then, it goes from too easy to too hard in a heart beat.
Buggy Programming – Even if I factor in that I am pretty bad, there is still 10% of the time that the program doesn’t pick up that I played the right string. It seems to get worse the more complicated the chord. I even stop the song and make sure I have the string or chord right, start it again so I know I have it right and yet still. What’s bad is not having it scored properly means the song won’t progress in difficulty for you.
The song list.
I guess this is why I doubt the reviews from “grandma who bought this for the kids and they love it”. Who knew grandmas were such big metal fans. The lack of musical variety is pretty pathetic and ultimately will limit my interest in the game. I can’t really find that many songs I’m interested in learning to mastery. And I wouldn’t even mind the metal and hard rock if the songs were all iconic hits and granted there is Walk this Way. Poison’s Pour some sugar on me, BlitzKrieg Bop, Kink’s You Really Got Me and The Trooper. But I can’t understand why there are so many songs I’ve never heard of and seem to have no appeal. They could have added really cool songs that are fun to play. How about including a Chuck Berry song as a tip of the hat to the past — some Hendricks — Lynyrd Skynyrd– or some funk or blues? And where is AC/DC, Van Halen or Led Zeplin??!!! And while I’m at it — female rockers get no respect on here. No Heart (Barracuda would have been AMAZING to learn), Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, Evanescence…no anything. Jeez — three songs by female groups I’ve never heard of — and lame songs at that.
The Announcer – I’d like to meet the person at Rocksmith who wrote the responses to give after you finish the song — I’d curse him out. Example. Last night I cranked the difficulty up to 100% on a song just to try it. I was going to do the best I could even if I only hit 1 out of every 5 or 6 notes. At the end of the song the game says in a really snotty voice, “Poor performance!”. Nice. If that were a human guitar teacher, he’d be fired. The game also says “Bad performance” or “Needs more work” in a nasty tone. Who talks to people trying to learn like that? I guess some jerk at Rocksmith, that’s who.
Conclusion
I’m not sorry I bought the game. I like it OK. I would recommend it but only with the caveats I just gave. I’ll use the riff repeater and learn the few songs I like. I looked on the DLC songs coming out and even those don’t expand the variety. I wish this game was so much better because the concept is a good one.
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