Its not often that videogames actually teach you things. Mario may have given me a new found respect for the grueling and unthanking life of an Italian Plumber, and Metal Gear Solid was an eye opener for modern foreign policy, but in terms of actually teaching you transferrable and practical skills? Well, video games aren’t exactly your go to guide.
That all changed however, when the original Rocksmith was released two years ago. Allowing you to plug in a real guitar to your console, Rocksmith gave you interactive lessons that could teach you as you were playing. Instead of mashing plastic buttons, this game could actually take you from struggling with ‘Polly want a cracker’ to confidently strumming your way through tracks by the Pixies.
Now Rocksmith 2014 is nearly here, and for the first time it can give you dynamic feedback on your playing in real time. As this is a teaching tool primarily, Rocksmith 2014 features a plethora of different interactive video lessons for you to master.The lessons I saw were detailed and helpful, covering everything from strumming and scales, to Van Halen-esque two handed finger tapping. Unlike the original, Rocksmith 2014 can actually recognise your mistakes, it knows when you’re not sliding, playing the wrong fret and what you did last summer..Probably.
The main complaint with the original Rocksmith was that it was great for beginners, but offered little for intermediate players who wanted to brush up on their technique and get their shredding up to Steve Vai levels of awesomeness. Rocksmith 2014 seems to be looking to address this with a more diverse array of songs, with everything from simple chord based tracks by bands like Oasis, to shred-tastic widdle fests from the likes of Pantera and Slayer – available right from the start.
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While the lessons felt genuinely well thought out and helpful, my only concern is that the vast majority of the lessons seemed to cater mainly to beginners, hopefully there will be some more advanced lessons available in the final build of the game.
Being a guitarist, I am the first to admit that I hardly ever take the time to practice my technique. Building up muscle memory through repetition is an incredibly important part of playing but also, incredibly dull. Luckily, Rocksmith has remedied this with their Guitarcade mode, and cleverly disguised tedious guitar excerises as fun, retro-inspired mini games.
My personal favourite was a House of the dead style on rails shooter, where you play the right chords to vanquish hordes of the undead. Silly, fun and incredibly effective– after playing the same chords for 5 minutes of pure zombie blasting you will definitely remember how to play an E5. There were also scale based exercise games, including a racing game and a streets of rage inspired fighter, encouraging you to play the notes of a scale in order to pummel some enemies and avoid oncoming traffic. Disguising these exercises as fun games is a stroke of genius, and left me pining to try out the rest of the games in the guitarcade.
The great thing about Rocksmith 2014 is that it continues to double up as your own personal amp, offering a great selection of different sounding amps and effects pedals so that you can completely customize your tone and create your own sound. Nailing your tone is all well and good on its own, but in combination with Rocksmith 2014’s new session mode it has the potential to be amazing.
Session mode looks to offer what all budding guitarists need – jam sessions. Instead of just being a basic drum machine or some sampled tracks however, it is completely dynamic. Depending on how fast or loud you play, your virtual band will respond. If you’re jamming out a slow and soft ballad-ey riff, the drums and other instruments will respond just as soothingly, but if you suddenly decided to tear it up they will up the ante accordingly in unison.
In the new session mode there are a selection of 75 different instruments for you to play alongside, you pick a genre, and you can add in everything from death metal guitars to ambient synths and even a kazzo – if you are that way inclined. Sadly my demo units crashed and I did not get a chance to test out this mode during my time with the build, but the demonstration of it was pretty impressive, and I can see this being Rocksmith 2014’s stand out feature.
Rocksmith 2014 looks set to be an accessible and highly effective way to learn guitar. I loved my time with it and cannot wait to have the final copy in my home, the diverse song selection and guitarcade look to be great for all skill levels of guitar players– but hopefully in the final build there will be more technical exercises and lessons that cater to the more advanced players. Rocksmith 2014 will be released on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 next month, guitar teachers beware.
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