Rocksmith is one of those "is this a game?"-games. It aims to let you learn the guitar. Not in the sense of guitar hero or rockband, but an actual, genuine guitar with strings, plectrum and all that stuff.
I guess it's my nature to be drawn to this sort of "games". Yes, I liked rockband a lot, but more because of the challenge of playing than of the escapism of feeling like some sort of rock God. As such, I was immediately interested when I heard of Rocksmith, and this was at the time the follow-up (rocksmith 2014) was announced. This was the genuine thing: no more holding plastic buttons but actual strings.
I didn't got it straight away. This another one of those things I do: I don't follow crowds, least of all fanboy crowds. This was one of those ideas that I had in my head for "sometime". Kind of like my tattoo's: they're worth pondering over, looked at from every angle and investigated. Also like that, this was a jump in the unknown (just like I don't have any friends who have tattoo's, I don't have 'em who play guitar...or any instrument for that matter). I mean...I almost literally had never even touched a guitar before, but here I was, putting rockmith 2014 remastered on my steam wishlist.
Next up was that cable. For those interested: it's both overpriced and worth it. Overpriced because 30 bucks for a cable that in the end doesn't even cancel out noise isn't fun. It's worth it because once I got the cheapest electric guitar I could find (80 bucks...I don't spend much money on something I might not even end up liking), I was immediately set to go.
Then I started the game. And it quickly became apparent that I didn't underestimate how hard this whole thing was going to be (for example: a guitar band and a plectrum are apparently something you really need. Yeah...I'm a beginner, okay?
). I mean...guitar hero has five "frets", my guitar has twenty-two. On guitar hero you only have one 'strum bar', a guitar has six. And that's before you start taking things like bends or slides into account (you can't "slide" from one button to another on guitar hero, and bending a note is equally impossible). Oh, and I'm still just scratching the surface.
The thing is: it's freaking FUN! Remember playing guitar hero on easy or (later) even on normal? It was boring as hell because it's only at a higher difficulty that you can somewhat have the illusion that you're actually playing something. And despite many reviewers saying otherwise, I feared that I would get fed up with "playing" a song where all I had to do was playing about one note every ten seconds.
And I won't lie: when watching me play, it really looks that way. And it sounds even worse (which is probably the best part of all: I can suck all the time without anyone booing at me or feeling disappointed teacher's eyes over me). Oh, and when playing songs, it also looks like I'm playing guitar hero, by the way (it has that same note highway). The thing is: setting your fingers correctly is hard. Or more correctly: it's the sort of hard that is rewarding if you pull it off. I mean...remember playing that game that took multiple hours to get good at? Well...this is something like that, but instead of "hours" you can easily say "months". This is the sort of thing that takes lots, lots and LOTS of time to learn. I knew that in advance, and in the end that was the only thing that held me back. My free time isn't limitless, and I knew that if I would sink it in learning guitar, other pastimes (like other video games) would suffer from it. They certainly do...and I don't mind.
What certainly tickles my interest: guitarcade. These are minigames using the guitar. These are awesome ways to focus on different aspects of playing, there are a lot of 'em and provide an ideal variation next to playing songs and following lessons.
I'm currently clocking at around 24 hours. May not sound that impressive yet, but it's nonetheless in my top 10 of played steam games. Including all the equipment it's also the most expensive game in my library, but nonetheless I'm about at that point where I can say that this is worth the price of admission (meaning: if I quit now, I won't feel like it would be a waste of money...and I'm not about to quit soon ).
EDIT:
...okay: I'm now around 50 hours and have the feeling I've got even more to learn than previously. Chords (basically holding your guitar at two or more frets) were hard and aside a few simple ones continue to fail more than work (which means I may need some actual teacher because I might be holding the thing wrong). But there are also things like palm muting and harmonics that can get sound out of that thing like I never thought possible (unlike tremelo, which is basically "play the same note over and over again). So now I'm mostly playing songs I like and gradually adding one or 2 percent on completion (yes...I'm actually proud I can improve a song playthrough from like 19.2% to 23.1% ). There are still quite some lessons to go, and this not only gets gradually harder by the lesson but also because I often revisit the accompanying track of previous lessons (I don't wanna forget what I've learned).
Another thing I tend to do is challenge myself to certain parts of songs (the game often advices this, btw): picking one part or one lick of a song and keep repeating that and gradually changing the speed and/or difficulty.
Despite this: even though I've still got plenty of songs to try* and even more to master**, I've put a whole lot of DLC on my steam wishlist. Like...more than actual games at this point. So be warned: this may end up being a money sink.
*as with rock band, some great songs aren't as fun to play and vice versa. I'm not sure if this is just me, though
**thus far, only 'tears of Jupiter' (by Train) is the only one I dare play on all the notes, and that song pretty much plays itself (and even then I manage to fail it in score attack ).
I guess it's my nature to be drawn to this sort of "games". Yes, I liked rockband a lot, but more because of the challenge of playing than of the escapism of feeling like some sort of rock God. As such, I was immediately interested when I heard of Rocksmith, and this was at the time the follow-up (rocksmith 2014) was announced. This was the genuine thing: no more holding plastic buttons but actual strings.
I didn't got it straight away. This another one of those things I do: I don't follow crowds, least of all fanboy crowds. This was one of those ideas that I had in my head for "sometime". Kind of like my tattoo's: they're worth pondering over, looked at from every angle and investigated. Also like that, this was a jump in the unknown (just like I don't have any friends who have tattoo's, I don't have 'em who play guitar...or any instrument for that matter). I mean...I almost literally had never even touched a guitar before, but here I was, putting rockmith 2014 remastered on my steam wishlist.
Next up was that cable. For those interested: it's both overpriced and worth it. Overpriced because 30 bucks for a cable that in the end doesn't even cancel out noise isn't fun. It's worth it because once I got the cheapest electric guitar I could find (80 bucks...I don't spend much money on something I might not even end up liking), I was immediately set to go.
Then I started the game. And it quickly became apparent that I didn't underestimate how hard this whole thing was going to be (for example: a guitar band and a plectrum are apparently something you really need. Yeah...I'm a beginner, okay?
). I mean...guitar hero has five "frets", my guitar has twenty-two. On guitar hero you only have one 'strum bar', a guitar has six. And that's before you start taking things like bends or slides into account (you can't "slide" from one button to another on guitar hero, and bending a note is equally impossible). Oh, and I'm still just scratching the surface.The thing is: it's freaking FUN! Remember playing guitar hero on easy or (later) even on normal? It was boring as hell because it's only at a higher difficulty that you can somewhat have the illusion that you're actually playing something. And despite many reviewers saying otherwise, I feared that I would get fed up with "playing" a song where all I had to do was playing about one note every ten seconds.
And I won't lie: when watching me play, it really looks that way. And it sounds even worse (which is probably the best part of all: I can suck all the time without anyone booing at me or feeling disappointed teacher's eyes over me). Oh, and when playing songs, it also looks like I'm playing guitar hero, by the way (it has that same note highway). The thing is: setting your fingers correctly is hard. Or more correctly: it's the sort of hard that is rewarding if you pull it off. I mean...remember playing that game that took multiple hours to get good at? Well...this is something like that, but instead of "hours" you can easily say "months". This is the sort of thing that takes lots, lots and LOTS of time to learn. I knew that in advance, and in the end that was the only thing that held me back. My free time isn't limitless, and I knew that if I would sink it in learning guitar, other pastimes (like other video games) would suffer from it. They certainly do...and I don't mind.
What certainly tickles my interest: guitarcade. These are minigames using the guitar. These are awesome ways to focus on different aspects of playing, there are a lot of 'em and provide an ideal variation next to playing songs and following lessons.
I'm currently clocking at around 24 hours. May not sound that impressive yet, but it's nonetheless in my top 10 of played steam games. Including all the equipment it's also the most expensive game in my library, but nonetheless I'm about at that point where I can say that this is worth the price of admission (meaning: if I quit now, I won't feel like it would be a waste of money...and I'm not about to quit soon
).EDIT:
...okay: I'm now around 50 hours and have the feeling I've got even more to learn than previously. Chords (basically holding your guitar at two or more frets) were hard and aside a few simple ones continue to fail more than work (which means I may need some actual teacher because I might be holding the thing wrong). But there are also things like palm muting and harmonics that can get sound out of that thing like I never thought possible (unlike tremelo, which is basically "play the same note over and over again). So now I'm mostly playing songs I like and gradually adding one or 2 percent on completion (yes...I'm actually proud I can improve a song playthrough from like 19.2% to 23.1%
). There are still quite some lessons to go, and this not only gets gradually harder by the lesson but also because I often revisit the accompanying track of previous lessons (I don't wanna forget what I've learned).Another thing I tend to do is challenge myself to certain parts of songs (the game often advices this, btw): picking one part or one lick of a song and keep repeating that and gradually changing the speed and/or difficulty.
Despite this: even though I've still got plenty of songs to try* and even more to master**, I've put a whole lot of DLC on my steam wishlist. Like...more than actual games at this point. So be warned: this may end up being a money sink.
*as with rock band, some great songs aren't as fun to play and vice versa. I'm not sure if this is just me, though
**thus far, only 'tears of Jupiter' (by Train) is the only one I dare play on all the notes, and that song pretty much plays itself (and even then I manage to fail it in score attack
).
