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An early hands on with Rocksmith

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Rocksmith

We get a lot of deliveries and cool things delivered to the Lazygamer offices but it takes a special something for that package to get everyone to crowd around the desk to see what you got.

One such moment occurred the other day when a beautiful black electric guitar was delivered with a copy of Rocksmith, the latest music title from Ubisoft that is distinctly different from anything you’ve played on the PS3 before.

The premise behind Rocksmith is that it really isn’t a game but rather an interactive learning experience. Or simply, it’ll teach you how to play the guitar and get women. Because no matter what anyone says, guitar players never struggle to get the girls.

So you can imagine I was quite excited to get going with the game and it started off pretty well, the guitar plugged straight into the USB port using the custom cable that came with the game, we then went through a few setup screens so the game knew what guitar I had and how it sounded.

Then it was to the tuning of the real, 6-string electric guitar; the first attempt worked perfectly but when I needed to confirm the tuning the software thought it was out of tune and I therefore went back to tuning it.

I’m not entirely sure what went wrong here but I’m quite happy to admit it was most probably something I was doing wrong, however during the tuning now I managed to snap a string which flicked back and slashed my knuckles. This was the first time a game had bitten back.

After a quick trip to the music store in Struebensvalley and R20 later I was back and ready to rock.

This time tuning went off without a hitch and I was then put into my first lesson where all I had to do was play 2 chords of The Rolling Stone’s classic rock track “I can’t get no satisfaction” and score a minimum of 1950 points. Like all music games you get points if you hit the note – the right ones, on the right frets and the right strings –  as it passes the line. Perfect timing gives you more points and I’m guessing there is a multiplier if you hit enough notes in a row but  – I wasn’t even close to ever accomplishing that. It’s a bit daunting for anyone who’s never held a guitar before.

Similar but different

I finished the song with over 7000 points though and then unlocked the next song. But the thing is I know I didn’t do well on this song so for now I’m staying on this level and trying to perfect it.

Will Rocksmith be able to teach me how to play the guitar? I honestly don’t know. I’m very unmusical and have no hidden musical talent at all so the game is going to have to be excellent to make it happen.

Thankfully I have the game for an extended period and I’ll keep a running tally of my progress and will let you know if things start to come together. It’s worth noting that unlike Guitar Hero and rock Band, Rocksmith isn’t a social experience – it’s a serious training tool. 

Unfortunately the game won’t be released locally until October and pricing is still being negotiated. But I wouldn’t expect this to be a cheap experience; you never know though – hopefully Ubisoft surprises us.

Last Updated: April 23, 2012

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