Review - Rocksmith (Playstation 3 U.S. IMPORT)

First of all – calling it a game may be a bit of a misnomer. It is a videogame, sure, but it is also a piece of software designed to teach players how to play rock guitar. And it’s different to games such as Rock Band, Guitar Hero etc – there are many little plastic replica guitars on sale for these games, all with brightly coloured buttons and so forth – they feel like toys.

No, the difference is that Rocksmith comes with a cable that allows you to connect a REAL electric guitar to your PS3 or Xbox.

That’s any type of electric guitar – the cable that comes with the game has a 6.3mm jack at one end and a USB plug at the other – so for us failed former guitarists / videogamers, this is the perfect reason to dust off the old axe and try to pick it up again.

As a direct result of this – I went back to my folks to retrieve my mighty 1992 Fender Stratocaster and got it up and running again. The strings were corroded, the bridge was broken – the tremolo arm had sheared off in it, the back plate was missing, etc etc. After some blissful shopping on eBay for spare parts, I spent a heavenly evening last Sunday stripping the guitar down and cleaning, re-assembling and setting it up.

So that was hugely satisfying to do – my old Fender now proudly sits in the corner of my lounge on a stand, looking beautiful again. After getting it up and running – I connected it up to my PS3. The game started and quickly took me to a tuning mode for the guitar – nice touch. Then it was straight into my first song – Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones.

The game is played by watching a kind of floating, ethereal fretboard. The strings are shown top to bottom and are marked by colour (this can be flipped upside down to look like guitar tablature if wished). The playing area scrolls left and right as necessary – with numbers shown above some frets as well as the traditional fret spots, to help orientate where your fretting hand should be.

The notes you need to play come floating towards you – some are played normally, some need to be muted, some need to be string bends, just like any real piece of guitar music. The game features dynamic difficulty – it starts you off easy, just playing a few of the notes from the song, but get this right and you will soon have to play more and more notes, chords and so on until you are playing virtually the whole guitar part.

It was a good choice of song too – it was very satisfying to play that first song, to hear my guitar again and to get a good chunk of the song right! It immediately revealed a lot of bad habits – I was trying to do everything with my middle finger, I had difficulty remembering which fret was which, I was slow – generally rusty all round.

But I’ve been rapidly improving. All the old chords have come back to me pretty quickly and the game has taught me many more that I didn’t know. It is currently starting to teach me techniques that I hadn’t got round to learning before, such as drop-D tuning power chords, hammer-ons and pull-offs, proper use of barre chords, etc etc.

A typical session will have you rehearsing three to five songs, in your own virtual lounge, before performing a whole set list live before a crowd. Play well enough and the crowd will demand an encore, unlocking a new song. Get that right and another new song will be unlocked – a double encore. In between there are plenty of mini games such as technique challenges, ranging from chords, harmonics, bends, slides and many more. There is a useful “Rocksmith Recommends” function that helps guide you along the way through all these exercises.

Between sets, there are a lot of tutorial videos showing all sorts of proper technique, fundamentals of guitar maintenance, restringing and more – all ready to be watched and revised. There is also the “Guitarcade” – full of cool mini games such as Dawn of the Chordead – play the right chords or be overrun by zombies! Or best of all – Scale Runner. This is one useful little game – scales are such an important thing to learn in rock/blues/metal. There are a large selection of technique challenges too – these are worth playing and replaying to go for bronze/silver/gold medals in each – it brings out the competitiveness and bloody-mindedness of the player and uses it to improve at something positive...

There is also AMP mode – this lets you play your guitar through your TV as if it were an amp. But thanks to modern modelling technology – as you play the game, many classic amps, effect pedals and more are unlocked for the player to use. This is a nice touch – our surround sound system is now a way nicer amp than my knackered old third-hand Marshall!

There is a multiplayer mode – although it is local multiplayer only. The cable is available to buy seperately and two players can plug in their guitars and jam together. I haven’t had the opportunity to test this yet – but I love the idea of this. Rocking out in front of the tv is nothing new, but to do this with real guitars... Awesome.

But - one issue that has raised its head is latency – or lag. Many US game review sites have criticised the game for this – claiming that there is a slight delay between playing a note on the guitar and the sound being audible in-game. Firstly – this has not happened to me at all – but this is because I have actually paid attention to the instructions that came with the game. As soon as you open the game box, there is a fold out leaflet inside describing how best to connect everything up. It describes the possible setups as follows: Good – console connected to HDMI cable as normal Better – console connected to composite lead, with the audio connectors connected to external speakers Best – digital audio out from console connected to external speakers From the get-go I used the “Best” set-up – connecting a digital audio cable from my PS3 audio out socket to our surround sound system – I have not experienced any lag at all.

For those who use the other setups – simply setting one’s HDMI TV to “Game Mode” reduces the amount of processing the TV does and therefore any delay in audio output. There is also a function in the options menu to account for video lag. This whole issue is something I have seen a lot of US review sites make a big deal of, invariably followed by all the user comments beneath stating that it’s not a problem, they love the game, it deserves a higher score etc.

It’s also sad to note that right now, there is no European release date for the game at all – perhaps down to music licensing issues, perhaps down to the fact that there is an unsigned band, also called Rocksmith, who already claim to own the rights to the name. Hopefully these issues can be resolved quickly and the game can be released on these shores as soon as possible. This is part of the reason I wanted to import the game and review it now – I feel this game has received a criminally low amount of coverage and attention in the UK, I hope this can raise a little bit of awareness for Brits...

As things stand, the only way for UK gamers to play this is to import the PS3 version as it is region-free, unlike the Xbox version. That’s fairly easy to do – reputable importers such as VideoGamesPlus.ca and Play-Asia have the game in stock – I was able to get a copy sent to me for £59.99 delivered from VGP’s eBay store.

There is also quite a lot of extra content available for the game – a lot of extra songs (including song packs from Megadeth and Pearl Jam), early unlocks for all the effect pedals etc. The only way to download these is to set up a US PlayStation Network account, download the DLC to one’s PS3 and then sign back in with the UK account. I haven’t tried this yet – the 50 songs that come with the game are keeping me plenty busy!

There is further DLC planned too – and not just music. The game’s developers have confirmed that support for bass guitars is currently being created now. This is an excellent touch – I am currently refurbishing my old Fender Precision Bass in preparation for this! Since the cable is available seperately, hopefully this will fit seamlessly with the multiplayer mode and allow one player to play lead guitar and the other to play bass – that would be fantastic, my wife knows how to play the bass a little too...

So there are real barriers to entry. You need to have a guitar, must be willing to buy the game from eBay or a videogame import site and if you want the DLC you need to create a US PSN account. Then if you have all that – it is best to connect your audio out to external speakers, such as a surround sound system.

But is it all worth it? Absolutely. Rocksmith may not be perfect, but right now it is my favourite game bar none. It is helping me realise a long held ambition, to improve at playing the electric guitar, all while having an absolute blast. I hope this ambitious, worthwhile and fun game receives a lot more attention and I sincerely hope it manages to secure a UK release soon. Then I want it to succeed so we can see sequels and further refinements to the amazing tech that is in this game.

But how to score it? Again – this is difficult. If you have no interest in playing the guitar, or don’t have an electric guitar – then it is no use. But if playing the guitar, in particular rock guitar, is something you’ve always wanted to try or something you’ve wanted to improve on, or go back to – buy this game. It has given me the kick I needed to get back into a hobby I used to love and it’s rewarding as hell – to improve at the game while improving myself... Warts and all – it is worthwhile in a way that transcends normal gaming.

My own personal view is that it’s worth a 10. I was tempted to raise it to 11 though...

Rocksmith is out now in the US and Canada for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. NOTE – only the PlayStation 3 version is compatible with UK consoles.