Buy Rocksmith

I used to play Guitar Hero with friends, got pretty decent at it, until I realised it was stupid spending that much time learning to play a piece of plastic. Soon after i got bored of it and stopped playing while thinking "it's sad you can't do the same but with an actual guitar so you'll learn to play it".

So when I found out about Rocksmith, it sounded pretty much like what I had always hoped for a rythm game and I had to give it a shot, bought a boxed game version with the original cable (30€ on Ebay) and a (very crappy) 50€ second hand guitar from a brand even google never even heard of. Thing is, I'm freaking poor and couldn't afford spending 200€ on a decent guitar just to "give a shot" at Rocksmith and risk wasting it all if disapointed.

So what do i think after a few weeks of trying? Well in short: HELL YEAH! If you're hesitating just go for it, you won't be disapointed. After years of unsuccessfull attempts to learn bass guitar, i can tell for sure i made a LOT more progress in only one week of Rocksmith than in 5 years of solo learning, and that's in both Bass and guitar (since a friend brought his bass to my place to play with me).

I would'nt say for sure that Rocksmith will make you a guitarist/bassist, I think you'd still have to get a teacher at some point if that's really what you want, but if you want to learn the basics, improve your skills and check out how guitar work for you, Rocksmith will give you full satisfaction. You just skip the annoying, long, repetitive hard work part to go straight to "now I enjoy practicing" part. I only wish I had something better than that crappy guitar as it's becoming an obtacle to my progress, I'm currently trying to save up for that.

My only advice: If you're buying a guitar for this game, don't go too cheap, you'll have nothing decent under about 200€ and it'll ruin a lot of the experience.

Pros:
-Excellent concept
-Very entertaining
-Very well done overall
-Absolutely suitable to learn
-Handle either guitar/ emulated bass (on guitar) / actual bass guitar
-Allow 2 players to play together
-Impressive real time adaptation to your skills and progress
-Tyranics Mini-games to force you progress faster on a specific technique

Cons:
-Menu is a little hard to navigate at first
-The cable have some misses, I have to unplug/replug it every now and then, not dramatic but could be improved.
-I miss a function to alternate players quickly, instead of changing profile after every songs.
-We can't skip the noobish tutorial when creating a new profil, why would you do that? Just... why? Some player know how to press a string, they don't need an unskippable 15min lesson on it.
-The songs database is a little short and not very diversed (pretty much only classic rock), and the songs to buy in the shop are quite f***ing expensive, 3€ each, not allowing poor players like me to enjoy many songs they really like.

Conclusion:

Very good game, such learning, much buy, wow.

Well I don't completely suck anymore.

I've tried to play the guitar on and off since I was a teenager with varios methods including DVDs, books and partwork magazines but I've never really kept playing as I get impatient that I don't sound good right away. Rocksmith solves that issue by rather than starting you off playing little riffs, you go straight into full songs and it plays most of the notes for you. As you start to improve, you get asked to play more and more of the song, leading into you playing the full song yourself so from step one, it sounds musical and for someone like me, that was the incentive that I needed to play more.

I'm only a week in and already I feel like I can call myself a guitar player wheras the last 15 years I've really been "a bloke who owns a guitar" Granted, I'm a BAD guitar player, but with the variety of songs and mini games keeping me motivated to play, then I genuinely feel I will become a decent one for the first time in my life.

Here's how the game mostly works. The game requires a special cable that allows you to plug your guitar into your computer. So just downloading the game won't allow you to play it unless you have that special interface cable. Once you plug in and tweak your options, the basic campaign will give you the simple "Rocksmith" experience. When you first start, all of the songs are not yet "leveled up," so you only need to play just a few notes of the melody, and probably no chords at all. But as you play each song again and again, the game figures out which sections of the song you're getting good at, and increases the difficulty, add more of the melody's original notes. This goes on continually, for every song you play, making the game increasingly more challenging the more you play it. After you have played each song and "leveled them up" to maximum, you'll basically be playing the song as it was recorded.

As a "guitar instruction" method, I really think this has potential. The early part of the game is simple enough that really ANYONE could play it, and the more you play, the more the game challenges you as a guitar player. Each song as a few different arrangements, some focusing on lead, some on rhythm and chords. The game is a harsh judge, so make sure you hit EVERY note, not just the ones that are easy to play!

As some who already plays guitar, I found the game was most rewarding when I was selecting individual songs to play from the game's catalogue, without bothering with the campaign at all. I sort of knew how to play Outshined already, but learning how to REALLY play it without cheating was a treat. I pick a song I like, and practice all the parts of it individually until I can play them all, then I try to put them all together by playing the complete song on the maximum level. Sometimes I can pull it off, depends on the song.

So if you're already a guitar player, or you are really interested in learning to play, this game is definitely for you! Tons of new songs to play as downloadable content. But if you're a "gamer" who's not really much of a musician, even if you really liked Guitar Hero, I'd say this game is probably not your cup of tea. It's more of a "musician's thing" than a game.

The game also features support for basses, and an entire campaign just for bass players. FINALLY, some respect!

I would highly recommend this even if you own and have played 2014. The DLC content alone makes it worth the money but it also has some features that 2014 does not like a few arcade games. The way it manages venues gives it a much different feel than 2014. I wish I would have purchased it long ago.

Really enjoying this so far!! I'm learning the bass and until playing this game I'd not learned anything. I'm still terrible after about an hour, but I'm having a blast and I already see myself progressing.

This game rocks. It is a very fun way to learn to play guitar. Don't have any illusions about it though. Guitar takes patience and practice.

I have to admit, I like the original RS. Both RS 2014 and the original RS compliment each other very nicely. The original RS slants in favor of a career mode by having the player play events while RS 2014 seems to possess a deeper focus on teaching the player how to play guitar. Both succeed and both games are a blast given their slightly different perspectives. If you're hell bent on learning to play guitar as I am, then RS is a nice place to start.

Good to learn guitar by yourself, good music overhaul, Balanced difficulty. The only problem is... PLEASE. ADD. CUSTOM. SONGS.
No Seriously, open a workshop for rocksmith. It feels like I bought a game from Activision with 80% of the game is DLC

love this game/tool

my guitar playing is progressing sl-ylwo get it? two steps forward, four steps back! No, really I am strugglying but not because of the game, but the way God gifted me or perhaps in this case did not gift. Nevertheless, having fun and who knows 10-20 years down the road.........?

Brilliant game through and through, can run on anything, excellent tool for learning the giutar and learning songs generally (Which is my use for it), I'd highly recommend it to anyone who'd like to start learning and learn songs

If you know how to play guitar already, even at a beginner level, you can learn how to play some cool songs and have lots of fun just by shredding on custom amp settings - get it asap! However, if you want to learn how to play guitar - this game may not be the best teacher you can get.

Needs more cowbell.

Si senor, kanske treeeej

*UPDATE: Got a Real Tone Cable now. Much better. Preparing Rocksmith 2014 review too*
As I was looking ways to learn guitar because I bought a Les Paul recently made me look into Rocksmith, a blend of a learning software and a game that in a sort of way reminds of a Rockband or Guitar Hero but complex and versatile at the time.
I plugged my guitar as I started the game, and it said to me after reaching the main screen I needed a Real Tone Cable as it specified in the store page. It wasn't a problem, as you CAN USE OTHER SOFTWARE to emulate the Real Tone effect so the game can recognise your guitar and then, let you play the game. You have to search the software in the internet and it makes you play outside Steam (that's why I have 5 min played, but I have played several hours) and if you want to be inside Steam while playing, you have to add the shortcut to your Library. Without the Real Tone Cable there is NO WAY to play inside Steam.
I still recommend buying the Real Tone Cable if you have the money to, because the other software can sometimes crash in a middle of a song or event and that ruins the experience of it. If you get the latest patch of the software, it will crash once in a while.

Talking about the music, the game offers a big catalog of songs (including a lot of genres like metal,classic rock, rock, alternative,etc) that grow smaller as you learn them all (but that will take quite a while though!) and a really extense one of DLC that is, in my opinion, somewhat better than the original because you buy the songs depending on your taste of music. I often buy my DLC during a sale since each song cost 1.49$ then and you can buy a lot more.

The gameplay is fantastic. The different modes that a song has include Practice,Perform,Riff Repeater and Techniques Used (and the great Master Mode unlocked after 100.000 points achieved in a song) The most valuable for me was the Riff Repeater, as you have 3 other options inside of it called Free Speed, Leveler and Accelerator (You can also manipulate the speed and level of the section) Those 3 help you to practice different sections of a song without trouble letting you do a first test to know your current level of playing the section, and then giving you 30 attempt to play the section at perfection. Losing lives after lives make you really try to play the section correctly!

At the end, play Rocksmith and you will have a great time as you learn the instrument you love with tons of hours of gameplay. Highly recommended for pros or starters.

If anyone called "Mikey" ever mocks you for playing this game by saying "skiddly-dee-wah-wah-yeaaaaah" through steam each time you play this game ignore him. He is being a negative Nancy and is pissing on your dreams and holding you back from headlining Glastonbury. In the words of 2Pac "F the haters" as thats what he is....

Yes this game is great, from never picking up a guitar before playing this game I like the learning curve to it and the soundtrack (plus the dlc) is quite varied enough to keep you coming back to play. Roll on Rocksmith 2014.

2014 is much better, but it is worth it to get this just for the songs.

This game has helped me with speed in playing guitar. Yeah the tuning on the game may be out a little, but it still is a great game. So many old songs you can play plus new ones you can buy, still one of my favorite games.

I'll be honest: this game won't do much good for absolute beginners. While it has various learning videos and explanations, it is more of a game meade for practicing guitar, not learning it from ground up.
If you won't expect that this game will teach you how to play, you'll be satisfied. It's good at what it does: practice. Many guitararcades minigames to practice one technique or another. Technique challenges to master your skills even more. And the best part: the songs. Playing guitar parts of your favourite songs with quality accomponement just feels awesome.

P.S. You don't need Ubisoft real tone cable to play the game. Just your guitar and no-cable fix (google it up)