AniAko
09-10-2011, 11:42 AM
Rhythm Games: Rock Band, DJ Hero, Guitar Hero, Band Hero. There's one thing they have in common at my house today: those plastic instruments have a fine layer of dust over them. I believe the story to be the same in other households too; Music games are in their twilight, and the industry and gamers alike are saying "Thanks for the good times" and moving on. So what would you think about a company trying to re-boot the game genre, arguably taking it to the next level? This is where Ubisoft is throwing its hat in the ring with Rocksmith, what they're calling an authentic guitar experience.
Upon seeing their booth at PAX, I was overcome with a strange emotion. The best way I can explain it was I was fraught with a mix of curiosity and apathy. I immediately experienced that "been there done that" feeling, but at the same time I saw people were playing "REAL" guitars. Now when I sit down with a new guitar tab at home, it feels nothing like a game. I have the song in a media player with my headphones on, and I'm learning the song, sections at a time constantly starting the song over and over again. That isn't the same kind of "fun" I receive when playing a video game, surely not the same feeling I got from Rock Band or other rhythm games. So my curiosity was piqued and I wanted to sit down with this thing and give it a fair shake.
Ubisoft produced the following three videos cover the demographics that would be interested in this game. The beginner, the gamer, and the musician, with each getting something different out of the game.
Beginner
fAP-IvVXoHM
The only thing I trully disliked about the game is the falsehood it serves for the person looking to actually learn guitar. It's easy to see that people will seek this game as a primary resource in learning the guitar, but what it doesn't teach is fundamentals. Reading tablature online and figuring out songs yourself is the way I feel a lot of people pick up guitar in today's world. Not that it's not a good way to get started, but what I see is people later having to re-learn fundamentals of guitar playing because they "guess" at what finger to use, how to properly hold a chord, and even guess at which picking and strumming techniques to use. I see this title as one of many tools you should use to help you learn the guitar, and if I had the choice, I would have rounded out my musical education with fundamental lessons before I picked up the bad habits. I'd suggest to any beginner picking up this game to help them learn how to play the guitar to augment their education with some form of fundamentals.
The first thing I noticed was there wasn't a big bulky box to plug the guitar into. It literally was a simple 1/4 inch audio to USB cord directly into the XBox360. That's where the magic of the game is, this cord will sell separately for $30 and is the ONLY extra hurdle, if you already own a guitar, to get into the game. You can balk at having to buy a guitar for $100 to get into this game, but a real guitar will serve a purpose outside the game unlike any plastic peripheral. So for people looking to learn how to play the guitar, it's actually the game that serves an ancillary purpose; a learning tool to your primary purchase.
We jump into playing a song once first the game checks that our guitar is in tune. You're shown the familiar rolling fretboard with different colored blocks coming down the screen at you. This time the strings are color coded, so different colors in the same position means the notes are moving string to string on the same fret, where different positions has you moving up and down the strings on the fretboard. This fretboard had a seemingly long depth, where you can see the notes coming from several bars away, contrary to modern "rhythm" games, where the depth is sometimes less than one bar on the highest difficulties.
Gamer
rYzoavA8B_8
The game response is impressive, as it is pretty good at picking up nuances with the way you press a string on the fretboard. If you're lazily pressing a string at the top of a fret, or on the fret, the game picks up the difference in pitch and will instruct you to move either up or down on the fretboard: an aspect that is more "learning-tool" in nature than "arcade-game" in nature. Another unique "learning-tool" like feature of this game is it will dynamically change the difficulty for how you're playing. If you're stumbling around the strings, the game will begin omitting notes, making it easier for you to focus on what you're getting wrong. On the other hand, if you're doing well, the game gradually adds more and more complex notes to the game helping you build up to playing the full actual song, but at a pace the game detects is working for you. That's an immensely useful feature when trying to get down some tricky finger work, but not knowing quite how to break it up, learn it, and at the same time get through it and onto the next part of the song.
I felt confident so we went into the next song in "chord-mode." It is just as it sounds: instead of playing single notes, you'll be strumming the chords to the song instead. It's safe to say that this will be a less enjoyable experience if you don't know your chords. The chords are presented on the screen in a mirror like fashion. It throws you off because most people are used to seeing the chords as if you're looking at the front of the fretboard. These images are as if you're looking through the back of the guitar and at the screen, as an overlay of what strings you need to press. Again the auto-difficulty kicked in when I wasn't quite landing my F-chords in time. I asked about a "slow-down" mode to help you learn songs, but such a feature will not be offered. Instead the auto-difficulty feature is meant to assist you, which is a different way to learn difficult sections. Personally I am used to playing the notes slowly over and over and over again, picking up speed until I get them right, or "mostly" right and then move on, where as this method has you coming back to it and building up that difficulty at your pace, but staying at the same tempo as the song.
Musician
Dx0S4FYip-k
Overall I felt as if I had spent some time with a song and some tablature, and walked away feeling like I had made progress in learning a new song. The competitive aspect came in the form of producing a score for how well, and how difficult the song was. In the end I didn't feel like I was playing a game like Rock Band or Guitar Hero, although the way the content is delivered and the game is played is similar, the arcade aspects weren't as prevalent. The learning aspects didn't shine through in my experience either. It felt like a new kind of rhythm game where I knew I was learning something, but it didn't come off as educational software, at the same time I had fun and enjoyed myself the whole time as if I was playing a video game.
If you acquire a second USB cord, there will be a split-screen multiplayer option where users can engage in a co-op session with one playing lead, and the other playing rhythm guitar. The game's release date is slated for Oct. 18th, 2011 for $80, which includes one USB adaptder for your guitar. They will also be offering an Epiphone Les Paul Jr. package with the game that will sell for $200, saving a few dollars off the cost of the guitar. The game will feature pedal effects in game, and there will be 50+ songs included on the disc with 10-20 songs immediately available as DLC. Now they need to make a game I can plug my drums into...
Upon seeing their booth at PAX, I was overcome with a strange emotion. The best way I can explain it was I was fraught with a mix of curiosity and apathy. I immediately experienced that "been there done that" feeling, but at the same time I saw people were playing "REAL" guitars. Now when I sit down with a new guitar tab at home, it feels nothing like a game. I have the song in a media player with my headphones on, and I'm learning the song, sections at a time constantly starting the song over and over again. That isn't the same kind of "fun" I receive when playing a video game, surely not the same feeling I got from Rock Band or other rhythm games. So my curiosity was piqued and I wanted to sit down with this thing and give it a fair shake.
Ubisoft produced the following three videos cover the demographics that would be interested in this game. The beginner, the gamer, and the musician, with each getting something different out of the game.
Beginner
fAP-IvVXoHM
The only thing I trully disliked about the game is the falsehood it serves for the person looking to actually learn guitar. It's easy to see that people will seek this game as a primary resource in learning the guitar, but what it doesn't teach is fundamentals. Reading tablature online and figuring out songs yourself is the way I feel a lot of people pick up guitar in today's world. Not that it's not a good way to get started, but what I see is people later having to re-learn fundamentals of guitar playing because they "guess" at what finger to use, how to properly hold a chord, and even guess at which picking and strumming techniques to use. I see this title as one of many tools you should use to help you learn the guitar, and if I had the choice, I would have rounded out my musical education with fundamental lessons before I picked up the bad habits. I'd suggest to any beginner picking up this game to help them learn how to play the guitar to augment their education with some form of fundamentals.
The first thing I noticed was there wasn't a big bulky box to plug the guitar into. It literally was a simple 1/4 inch audio to USB cord directly into the XBox360. That's where the magic of the game is, this cord will sell separately for $30 and is the ONLY extra hurdle, if you already own a guitar, to get into the game. You can balk at having to buy a guitar for $100 to get into this game, but a real guitar will serve a purpose outside the game unlike any plastic peripheral. So for people looking to learn how to play the guitar, it's actually the game that serves an ancillary purpose; a learning tool to your primary purchase.
We jump into playing a song once first the game checks that our guitar is in tune. You're shown the familiar rolling fretboard with different colored blocks coming down the screen at you. This time the strings are color coded, so different colors in the same position means the notes are moving string to string on the same fret, where different positions has you moving up and down the strings on the fretboard. This fretboard had a seemingly long depth, where you can see the notes coming from several bars away, contrary to modern "rhythm" games, where the depth is sometimes less than one bar on the highest difficulties.
Gamer
rYzoavA8B_8
The game response is impressive, as it is pretty good at picking up nuances with the way you press a string on the fretboard. If you're lazily pressing a string at the top of a fret, or on the fret, the game picks up the difference in pitch and will instruct you to move either up or down on the fretboard: an aspect that is more "learning-tool" in nature than "arcade-game" in nature. Another unique "learning-tool" like feature of this game is it will dynamically change the difficulty for how you're playing. If you're stumbling around the strings, the game will begin omitting notes, making it easier for you to focus on what you're getting wrong. On the other hand, if you're doing well, the game gradually adds more and more complex notes to the game helping you build up to playing the full actual song, but at a pace the game detects is working for you. That's an immensely useful feature when trying to get down some tricky finger work, but not knowing quite how to break it up, learn it, and at the same time get through it and onto the next part of the song.
I felt confident so we went into the next song in "chord-mode." It is just as it sounds: instead of playing single notes, you'll be strumming the chords to the song instead. It's safe to say that this will be a less enjoyable experience if you don't know your chords. The chords are presented on the screen in a mirror like fashion. It throws you off because most people are used to seeing the chords as if you're looking at the front of the fretboard. These images are as if you're looking through the back of the guitar and at the screen, as an overlay of what strings you need to press. Again the auto-difficulty kicked in when I wasn't quite landing my F-chords in time. I asked about a "slow-down" mode to help you learn songs, but such a feature will not be offered. Instead the auto-difficulty feature is meant to assist you, which is a different way to learn difficult sections. Personally I am used to playing the notes slowly over and over and over again, picking up speed until I get them right, or "mostly" right and then move on, where as this method has you coming back to it and building up that difficulty at your pace, but staying at the same tempo as the song.
Musician
Dx0S4FYip-k
Overall I felt as if I had spent some time with a song and some tablature, and walked away feeling like I had made progress in learning a new song. The competitive aspect came in the form of producing a score for how well, and how difficult the song was. In the end I didn't feel like I was playing a game like Rock Band or Guitar Hero, although the way the content is delivered and the game is played is similar, the arcade aspects weren't as prevalent. The learning aspects didn't shine through in my experience either. It felt like a new kind of rhythm game where I knew I was learning something, but it didn't come off as educational software, at the same time I had fun and enjoyed myself the whole time as if I was playing a video game.
If you acquire a second USB cord, there will be a split-screen multiplayer option where users can engage in a co-op session with one playing lead, and the other playing rhythm guitar. The game's release date is slated for Oct. 18th, 2011 for $80, which includes one USB adaptder for your guitar. They will also be offering an Epiphone Les Paul Jr. package with the game that will sell for $200, saving a few dollars off the cost of the guitar. The game will feature pedal effects in game, and there will be 50+ songs included on the disc with 10-20 songs immediately available as DLC. Now they need to make a game I can plug my drums into...