Rocksmith is the latest development of the guitar-controller based gameplay popularised by Guitar Hero. Rather than using a plastic controller and following "notes" on a screen by holding down 5 colourful buttons and strumming along, the player uses an actual guitar (or bass guitar) to play along with music. The game seems to be marketed at beginners interested in learning guitar as a useful tool for picking up the instrument, but at the end of the day it is game which is meant to be enjoyed by a target audience of anyone who would be interested in using a guitar as a controller in a video game.
My brother and I saw this game in JB Hi-Fi the other day and decided to pick it up and give it a go; the concept was interesting and $60 for what was provided seemed like a reasonable price. We bought the pack that included the lead/adapter (USB cable one end, standard 1/4" output jack the other), some stickers to label the fret numbers and of course the game itself. There's also a bundle that comes with an Epiphone Les Paul Junior if you don't already have a guitar, a strap and 2 picks.
We used my brother's Fender Squier Stratocaster, and didn't experience any issues.
During initial setup which includes an on-screen guitar tuner, we noticed that the tuner gives a lot of lee-way for telling you whether or not your guitar is "in tune". We noticed that with the G, B and e strings, the tuner indicated that the guitar was in tune when even to my untrained ears the notes were clearly flat.
When we got into the actual game, we both agreed that the gameplay interface was a bit confusing and that we were thrown into the game without much of a clear explanation on how to play. After a couple of minutes, we did get used to it, but the game still felt confusing. The more songs we played through, the more we noticed different types of notes coming up on screen that were stylised differently, with no real explanation beforehand on what to do when we encounter these notes. The explanation/tutorial only came after we had played the song, which seems a bit strangely placed. We also noticed that depending on how well you're doing during the phrases, it "levels up", introducing more notes and hence increasing the difficulty. The fact that the game makes adjustments in every song to match your skill level is quite a nice feature, although it wasn't perfect and added to our confusion most of the time. We concluded that all of these features added together just encouraged repetition and practice to fully master a song, which seems like a good idea, especially for those who are just starting out with learning guitar.
The soundtrack for the game is predominantly rock, which my brother and I certainly didn't mind as we're both fans of the genre. Whether or not this soundtrack is to everyone's tastes is an entirely personal opinion, but the music choice in my opinion seems to suit the vibe of the game.
So did I think it was worth the money? Probably. As this is only a first impression, time will tell as I keep playing, but at that price point and what the game delivers certainly seems reasonable as far as I can tell right now. While the game has its handful of shortcomings, considering it's the first game of its kind to introduce using a real guitar as a controller, it's a very good step in the right direction and acts as a very good base to further develop and refine.
No comments:
Post a Comment