Ubisoft's Rocksmith Day One Review

Article first published as Ubisoft’s Rocksmith: Day One on Technorati.

Today I received my copy of Ubisoft’s Rocksmith. I pre-ordered the game several months ago anticipating the day I can use my PlayStation 3 console and guitar together and rock out.

The retail box of Rocksmith includes the game disc, fret board stickies and a cable to plug your guitar into your console’s USB port. Also note that the game developers have said that the cable can be used on PC as well….so I’ll be sure to try and use the guitar cable with GarageBand.

At start up, I was greeted by an 11 Mb software update, once completed, the game loaded. You’re first ‘mission’ is to strum your guitar as loud and fast as you can to get your audience cheering. Once you get the crowd going, your guitar setup beings. The system asks you questions about your guitar such as head stock type and if you’re a leftie or rightie.

The game also helps you tune your guitar and before every lesson, the system asks you to strum each string to make sure you’re still in tune.

The first track you’re taught is (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones. The lesson starts out with very basic strumming; only a few notes at a time. As the song goes on, a few more notes appear to strum in the timeline. Once the song is over, your stats are displayed and are given the option to either move on to the next song or try again. I continued to play (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction and a few more notes were added in the 2nd round. As you play, you also collect points and these point accumulate for each song. Once you reach 70,000 points, you earn an effects pedal in which you can use later on to create you own custom sound.

I really got into the game. Now I think this game isn’t going to be for everyone. It’s probably designed for a very small niche of gamers that want to learn how to play guitar. So while I don’t think it’s going to sell millions and millions of copies, those that are interested on learning how to play guitar should enjoy it.

Rocksmith is more of a teaching tool than a game. I really like it because of the interactivity between you and the ‘game’. When sitting around read tablature or music sheets, you don’t get any feedback on your playing, but Rocksmith will tell when to correct your finger postion whenever your off key. Plus, Rocksmith is not as boring as just sitting around with sheets of music.