Rocksmith discussion thread - New real guitar game.

[Ryder35]

Thanks for the help, just bought the bundle.

Well done that person!

[Der_Lex]

Why is this thread not in the Rock Band Subforum? Rocksmith's gameplay is very clearly related to Rock Band's Pro Guitar Mode. This is not the time to show weakness. That's all I'll say on the situation.

Discussion threads of non-RB music games like GH, Rock Revolution and now Rocksmith have always been in this subforum. As the name implies, the Rock Band subforum is for discussion of games that are part of the Rock Band franchise only. It's not a matter of 'weakness', but rather one of consistency.

I personally think it's kinda cool that so many people here are enjoying this game and are actually learning how to play an instrument from it. I've never been an either/or kind of guy as far as music games are concerned, and there's no reason why you can't enjoy both Rocksmith and RB3 pro mode. The only reason I'm personally not picking this up is because I honestly don't really have an interest in learning how to play guitar. I'm more of a keys and drums kinda guy.

[SRTtoZ]

Thanks for the help, just bought the bundle.

Actually I lied, its awful! MUHAHAH! Just kidding lol. I have owned 2 Epiphones in my life, the special 2 and the standard and they have done nothing but IMPRESS me with the performance/price ratio. My standard sounds great and was extremely affordable. You're going to enjoy that guitar! Congrats man! The only other thing I can suggest in the future is to buy some new strings, they are super cheap and can make a difference.

[Bront20]

Thanks for the help, just bought the bundle.

Buy me one too please

[kitlerc]

Personally, I can't stand Rocksmith. How everyone previewing it and even in Rocksmiths adverts, they blatantly ignore RB3's Pro Mode. And when they don't totally ignore it, I can't help but feel they're really saying "What... that old piece of crap? Nah. We're the real deal.". I just get this wrong, douchy vibe from Rocksmith.

And HMX puts so much effort into Pro Mode, especially for how little play it.

It does have it's pluses, but still. Kinda actually has me worried, Rocksmith. A lot might jump to that and leave behind RB3.

I feel that Rocksmith has been teaching me a a bit better on how to play my guitar than RB3 Pro did. Having a full game dedicated to it means you can put more time into that feature, and give it sub features, creating games to help you practice different techniques, making a lot of videos to show you how to do certain things, and generally being more of a teacher than being a book.

However, I have no plans on leaving RB3 behind. It has too many other features that Rocksmith just can't be compared with. And really, I'm hoping to use Rocksmith to get better for RB3 Pro-tar. (In fact, I'm using the Fender Squier Pro controller so I have it for both games)

[Weeksy77]

OK - so I've just spent my first 2 and a half hours with Rocksmith.

For background - I have never played the Guitar before in my life outside of an air one, and I'm a fairly average to good "Rock Band" player, 5 starring most songs on Expert - but like most of us, started out with "Guitar Hero" way back when.

So, starting up - when the first riff demonstration started, my first thought was "Oh bugger, this is going to be aimed at someone more advanced than I am", because I missed probably half the notes.

Going into the first setlist, I get "Satisfaction" & "Next Girl" - I manage to make 82% on "Satisfaction", and a whopping 90% on "Next Girl", but I don't really level either of the tracks up dramatically, and when I do, they come back down to more basic arrangements fairly quickly from me missing notes, but I'm pretty chuffed and go into my first live performance.

I do fairly well on "Satisfaction", absolutely cream "Next Girl", and earn my first encore with "Angela" - which I also manage to get 90% in.

In between, Rocksmith offers me training in shifting, a game of "Ducks" (where I am extremely pleased to get 1,000 points on my first attempt, becoming second to last on the high scores....) and eventually progression to the next set.

Next up is "Go With The Flow" by QOTSA (one of my fave bands) & "Higher Ground" by RHCP - I cream "Go With The Flow", levelling the song up fairly highly in the process, but then come crashing back down to Earth with a misguided attempt at Palm Mutes with "Higher Ground" (and although I pass the technique challenge for Palm Mutes with flying colours, it doesn't translate into the final performance for me).

I unlock my second encore, "California Brain" by The Rapscallions and.... hang on.... where are all these other notes coming from all of a sudden? I'm only used to Red & Yellow! Suffice to say, I don't do well with it, but I do start picking up more notes towards the end of the track.

At this point, my index finger feels like I've slammed it into a drawer continuously for 2 hours, so I bravely attempt to play "Use Somebody" by Kings of Leon from the "Songs" section - it's only in chords, but I press 'X' to continue.

I am not ready for Chords.

Finally, I return to "Satisfaction", and manage to make a fairly decent attempt at the main riff while the loading screen is in action - and it actually sounds pretty good! (Yay for my brain, it's remembering something!) Final percentage (after a good amount of levelling up) is 92%.

So, after 2 and a half hours - I've played a harder version of the first song I tried, and I've beaten my original effort by 10%.

It's all very daunting to be honest, but I have every intention of sticking with it, and giving learning the Guitar a serious try.....

[tnevaker]

Personally, I can't stand Rocksmith. How everyone previewing it and even in Rocksmiths adverts, they blatantly ignore RB3's Pro Mode. And when they don't totally ignore it, I can't help but feel they're really saying "What... that old piece of crap? Nah. We're the real deal.". I just get this wrong, douchy vibe from Rocksmith.

And HMX puts so much effort into Pro Mode, especially for how little play it.

It does have it's pluses, but still. Kinda actually has me worried, Rocksmith. A lot might jump to that and leave behind RB3.

i'm no fan of the Rocksmith advertising, but it really has nothing to do with whether the game is any good or not. there's nothing that says you can't play both. and why would you mention and bring attention to a competing product in your own advertisments? that seems like bad business to me.

HMX put a lot of effort into pro mode. sadly, they made a poor decision at the beginning by not trying harder to use a universal technology like RS's that would let people use their own guitars, and forced people to buy a poor quality, overpriced guitar that doubles as a game controller. if the relatively tiny percentage of RB players who play pro guitar leave RB for this game, it's because of that poor decision-making. and especially now that said poor-quality, overpriced guitar has been discontinued, RS will be the ONLY choice for anyone who wants to play video games with a real guitar.

i enjoy RB pro mode and will continue to play and enjoy it. but if pro mode suffers because of this new game, HMX has only themselves to blame. that's what happens when a newer, better technology comes along. it's on them that they chose to go down the wrong path with their pro mode tech.

[selurevad]

J
This game is aimed more at people who actually want to play guitar. Rock band is still a game(though it has added deeper parts). The audiences are quite different(though with a slight overlap).

Or people who want to play with their own guitars they own and love and not buy yet another guitar they don't want.

I love both both games and if nothing else this game gives Rockband some competition again which is a good thing and something even RB fanboy's should be grateful for. While its hardly direct competition, since RB is a game and I think Rocksmith is instructional software, its at least competition for RB3 pro guitar.

If we someday get RB4 with support for OUR guitars we'll all be thanking Rocksmith for this. And lesser skilled guitar players like myself would be likely spending time in both games, Rocksmith for practice, skills repetition, learning, etc. Rockband for trying its much much larger library.

Speaking of, I know RB's library is huge, but I also know many of those songs do not have pro guitar support. Is RBs song finder accurate? I've never used it before. Looking at that it appears RB has 236 songs that support pro guitar, does that sound right?

[kitlerc]

Looking at that it appears RB has 236 songs that support pro guitar, does that sound right?

yeah, that sounds right.

[KorbenD]

Just a curious question: what type of guitar is everyone using for this game? I'm using a Squier Jaguar that I got a pretty good deal on a few weeks before the game came out.

So far I've used:

Ibanez RG870 <--Main one.
Fender Telecaster '60s RI
BC Rich Warlock
Saga Tele and Strat (both built by me)
and the Squier RB3 Strat

The RB3 controller is the least fun to use, particularly for bends. There's too much of a change from the metal to plastic on the frets. The rest have all worked more or less flawlessly.

If you're having trouble with the game not recognizing notes at the higher fret numbers (particularly in Ducks) check your intonation.

As for RS itself, I'm loving the game. It's taught me things in the first couple of days that RB3's Pro mode didn't in the last several months. The interface takes some getting used to, and the lack of a utility to interactively set lag is a glaring omission, but overall a great game/tool.