This game is pretty fun. It helped me pick up the guitar ...
587940
This game is pretty fun.  It helped me pick up the guitar again after taking a long hiatus.  The interface is much like guitar hero, but you play with an actual guitar as your controller.  My biggest complaint is that my acoustic-electric does not work too terribly well with the game.  I had to go out and buy a cheap electric to get the game to properly respond when I would strum the correct note or chord.  Overall, I think this game is an ingenious way to get a kid that may be a fan of guitar hero or rock band to want to play an actual instrument.
739528
The newest version of Rocksmith sees some improvements and advances in game play over the prior version,  making it a joy to play and stick with. I got the original Rocksmith and was pleasantly surprised at how much it was able to teach me.  However,  the menu and progressing through the lessons was a little unintuitive.  It was tough to get from just playing a song,  back to the lessons.  The newest version has a much more intuitive menu,  where it is easy to just pick up and play some songs, or, if you are going down the lesson track, to sit down and learn a song, or specific part of a song to master a technique.

The "guitarcade" is a collection of mini-games to help practice your technique. It is themed around an 80s style arcade,  which doesn't really fit with the rest of the style of the game, but that's okay, it's still fun.  You will have no problem with lag as long as you use the audio out through the RCA cables and not the HDMI or Optical out.

One aspect of this version that is both good and bad is the inclusion of the lead or rhythm guitar learning track (or you can choose bass track).  With the last version, you would learn aspects of the lead guitar along with aspects of the rhythm guitar.  I like that it provides an option to focus on what you do best (or want to focus your learning on). On the other hand, I liked having all parts of the song intermixed in one track. I'm mainly on the rhythm guitar learning track, but I really miss being able to play certain lead riffs.

There is enough variety of styles and genres in this to keep you interested,  even if every song is not your cup of tea. You should find enough songs to learn to make it worth it, no matter your musical taste.  A great game and a big improvement over the last version.
1539644
Oh man, this game is fun. Good to have out at a small gathering for people to fiddle with.
1993821
I had never played this game before I bought it for my son for his birthday.  Now I play it almost as much as he does, I like the guitar, I makes you fell like you are playing for real.  I recommend this game and guitar for anyone that is up for a challenge.
1431340
I first entered my review three days ago (below the line).  I'd like to add to it, and I'm adding a positive note. I've found the replay value of the game much more fun than I did three days ago. That's because the position of stuff to find does change each time, and I am not bettering my score by much each time. The little puzzles within each turn stay the same each time, though.  The puzzles at the end of each case also change positions, etc., so that sometimes I do worse on them than I did the prior time! In other words, the replay is still a lot of fun. Though it doesn't take that much time to get all the way through all 20 cases, there's enough change each try that replay is still fun.

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This game is fun, but I do regret paying $20 for it as it barely lasted two days for playing all the way through!  All but one of the mini-games are very easy for an adult.

It is a good game for just relaxing, though, because search-and-find games don't need computation powers, etc.  I rated it a FIVE for fun and a FOUR overall - that is, what I would call average overall.  Another reviewer recommended another series with more levels, and I think I'll try that next.

That said, I do want to mention that you can challenge yourself in this game to better your time and overall score - so it is good for replay in that way.  You get bonus points for this or that, and you get points deducted for this or that.  Plus you are timed.  So there are several ways to improve your overall scoring in the game.  I retried one of the 20 games, as I had gotten stuck finding one item the first time. The second time through, a few of the items to be found changed, so I still had to "work"!

Happy Reader
2593961
I am only a couple months in, but I am amazed at both how much fun Rocksmith has been and how much I have learned.  I've tried learning guitar in the past, but I don't have the discipline for pushing through the "sucking" phase.  This game helps you work past that by gradually building everything up for you, first by simply getting comfortable moving along the fretboard, then by incorporating power chords or simple chords, and then finally by getting into hammer-ons/offs and more complex technique.  As songs that you have already played become more complex, there's a real sense of accomplishment, which helped push me through the most awkward parts.

One aspect of Rocksmith that I hadn't appreciated at all that I think would appeal to people who already can play the guitar is the jam session mode.  You can improvise with a backing band that responds to your phrasing.  Not only can it teach you to solo in different modes, but it's simply fun to rock out for awhile with a "band" for folks who might not have a garage full of friends ready to jam.

I have had almost no problems with the interface, minus some issues with the low-E that I think are related to my playing.  I have experienced no delay whatsoever with how I have my audio set up (HDMI to TV, with optical audio from TV to speaker), which makes the whole experience very smooth.

There are a ridiculous assortment of tone options for your guitar, which probably means something for gearheads, particularly in the jam session, but I am not at all at that point of knowledge or caring to really appreciate the insane collection of pedals, amps, etc. included in the game.  However, I think it's yet another aspect of the experience that even experienced guitar players could appreciate about Rocksmith.
2113487
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is a very innovative game like the other Guitar Hero's, which makes a sedentary hobby of video gaming a little more active and also can inspire an interest in learning to actually play a guitar. I waited awhile and finally gave in and have to say I was impressed.

The guitar is top notch and the interaction with the onscreen action is seamless. There is a significant learning curve that can only be lessened by frequent play. This is not a pick up, play for a few hours, go a week without playing, then come back and expect to be any good type of game. The best advice is to play a little every day/night and get 5 stars on easy on every song before moving to Medium. Each subsequent difficulty level adds speed and more note buttons.

The song list is pretty solid, but in many ways it is disappointing that many are only covers and not originals. In fact, most of the best songs are covers. Sure the cover bands sound like the original artists but I often wondered why no pony up for the original tracks. I hope this is a flaw corrected in the new GH game coming out. I saw "As Made Famous By" way too many times.

Likewise, the song list in the in-game store is basically a bunch of never heard of groups, with the exception of Bret Michaels. Needless to say, I haven't bought much of the in-game store songs. I do understand the PSN store has some good tracks though.

All in all, it is a fun diversion from using a gamepad and brings back old school button mashing speed and coordination. Also, it is fun with groups of people taking turns trying to be a rock god.
2555839
"Guitar Hero World Tour" is my first foray into the "Guitar Hero" world. I must admit that I was a bit nervous in the beginning, but after playing just the intro to a few songs, I began to feel very comfortable with the guitar in my hands. "Guitar Hero" allows you to practice, start out in a garage band and then work your way to the top. You can also battle it out with guitar gods like Ted Nugent. As you get better and play more songs, you get cash for gigs and unlock rockers like Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame.

This set also features a nice batch of tunes ranging from Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" and "Mr. Crowley" to Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher." Jane's Addiction, Foo Fighters, Sex Pistols and the Hush Puppies are just a few of the other bands that have tunes on this game.

"Guitar Hero World Tour" is highly addictive and terribly fun. You'll feel like a star and won't be able to stop rockin' once you get the hang of the game. Plan for a few hand cramps as well.

Highly recommended.
364700
The game itself is very fun to play huge list of songs fun modes and good downloads , better then rockband for the list of songs.  But the guitar is horrible when it works its very fun but my first one broke in under a week .... Activision and red octane took about a month to send me a new one... and it was broken to.  The first one squeaked and would not down strum.  The second one Squeakes and ocasionaly the touch pad goes, also the red butten becomes stiff everyonce and a while and will not press down.  SO its worth buying but get the rock band guitar or some other one
4945431
This game is pretty fun. I bought it from gamestop for 10 bucks, pretty cheap for a music game.
Okay, its not as good as guitar hero, but for 10 bucks, wow!!
THe songs aren't bad, some are teen songs , like dirty little secret and sk8er boi.
You can play guitar , bass, drums, and even vocals.
On the down side, most of the songs are covers and there isn't as much songs as there is on guitar hero.
It also has a music player so if you like any of the songs, you could just listen to it right on your ds, pretty handy .
Its a pretty fun game once you get used to it, but if your looking for something with more songs, and more of guitar hero like, don't get this.
But seriously, if your planning to use 10 bucks for a decent game, this would be a choice .
237081
My son and his roommates love playing Guitar Hero.  They do not have much free time, they are away at Prep School, so when they play, they have a great time.
1400875
Really fun game, I don't really feel like it's one of those games you can just pull out and play quickly the first time but once you understand how it works it's really fun!
968687
I'm fairly decent at playing guitar in Harmonix' Rock Band, but I've never played a real guitar before.  After spending a few hours with the game, I can confirm that if you really want to play guitar, but you're bored with videos or books, then this game will teach you how to play guitar.  However, I found that playing real guitar is actually quite difficult, so I don't think that I'll be mastering it.

Some reviews have blasted the dynamic difficulty, but I think it's great.  Unlike Rock Band, this game does not punish you for missing notes.  Everything about the game is geared toward improving your real guitar skills.  Rock Band, on the other hand, offers no assistance -- your only option is to keep practicing (and failing) until you get it right.

There are a few quirks to the gameplay that could be fixed.  Since you're using a real guitar, you also have to have a standard Xbox controller.  Sometimes you're asked to strum your guitar to continue even though you have the controller in your hand.  The load times are long and frequent, and the screen doesn't show anything while you have to wait, so sometimes you're wondering if it's expecting you to press a button.  The menus are also sometimes hard to see -- at one point all I saw was "Resume", but the other menu options were too dark to see, so I was confused.

My brother-in-law is an accomplished guitar player, so I asked him to review the game as well.  He agrees that the game is pretty good ("it's 80% there").  His major complaint is that the game can be too discouraging for new players because it doesn't have an option for correcting the pitch of the played notes.  As any guitarist knows, even if the guitar is in tune, a proper playing technique is required to make the guitar sound good.  If you don't strum properly, it will sound weird.  Well, Rocksmith picks up the actual sound and plays it as-is, which means that a novice will sound bad even if he's technically in tune.  Instead, the game should try to "correct" the sound so that it at least sounds good.

So in conclusion, I would recommend Rocksmith only for people who want to learn how to play guitar.  In fact, I'm hesitant to call it a game.  The initial difficulty for new players can be really daunting, and there's no way to avoid that.  If you have no real interest in playing a real guitar, you won't last long with this game.

There are rumors that a future update to this game will include support for bass guitar, which is something that I can play.  I took lessons for a year, and I find bass to be much easier to play than guitar overall.  If/when that update is available, I will revisit this game and update my review.
2169870
Great game.  still starting but the connection with the ps4 to the guitar is nice. instant gratification or criticism which helps me learn quicker.
4520952
Along with the plethora of music titles, Activision did make the attempt of highlighting a great band's career that spans a large portion of American culture that is Aerosmith. Even though the music selection for this game is great and doesn't just span the greatest hits, the songs all in all were pretty easy for me to get through. I was able to 5-star almost every song on the first try on my first playthrough. Granted it is still fun, but in my opinion, this is where the Guitar Hero series started to get old
3623826
Good game. I'm just getting started back on the guitar. The game is helping. But just so you know it is not a replacement for regular practice. It is very helpful though especially the arcade games.
1700149
The game is a good one, but you have to practice a lot.
It takes a little while to learn the different control buttons.