Rocksmithery

Hmm... Rocksmith. What to make of you...


I've played it for the last few hours and do I feel that I'm better on my guitar? No.

Do I feel frustrated at some obvious game design issues? Oh yes. There are three main problems...

1. The transparent guitar neck that you look through when playing gives you no way of knowing where on the neck you're meant to be. There isn't even an option to overlay fret numbers - you just have to wait for the notes to approach and react accordingly (as opposed to being ready for them)
2. The neck again... it moves about. Seemingly at random. Obviously, it has to move to the next note position (especially when going to higher notes), but the constant drifting should again be an option. This is a real problem when notes are approaching, as they usually come at an angle, therefore making it difficult to know exactly which notes they are.
3. Encores. After playing a gig, you usually get an encore. This will be a song that you've (most likely) never played, and usually features techniques that haven't been introduced (which is, lets face it, just shocking game design). The upshot of this is that you play maybe 10% of the notes, and just as you think you're getting the hang of things, you get knocked back further than you'd climbed.

There are other, obvious issues too. The inability to use the L/ R bumpers to skip through the song list for example. Not being able to 'favourite' songs is another gripe.

The extraordinarily lengthy loading times get a bit annoying too.

Oh, and the worst thing... 

... you can't set a difficulty level. If you happen to be good at one bit of a song, it'll ramp up the difficulty of the whole thing - which means you get to the next bit and fail miserably. Combine this with the 'not really sure which fret I'm meant to be playing' and it all gets switched off very quickly. 

Then there's the Chilli Peppers song (Higher Ground)... could a worse song of theirs have been chosen? Really? 

It's a mess - a cacophony. I have no idea what I'm meant to be playing. The notes you get told to play don't seem to be in the song. It's massively frustrating. Especially as you have to play it, in order to progress.