by: Justin Amirkhani

As entertaining as games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are, neither are particularly adept at really teaching you how to play guitar. Rock Band 3's Pro Mode attempted this but it was more of a stepping stone. Countless parents and teachers look at the time spent living out the artificial fantasy those rhythm games provide and wonder what it would be like if even half the investment had been made into learning a real instrument. Rocksmith is the answer that everyone’s been looking for, managing to take the long and arduous process of learning how to shred on a guitar and turning it into a fun and engaging video game experience.

Eschewing the plastic instruments for a genuine 6-string, the game doesn’t play coy about its attempt to get people playing for real – a problem that Rock Band 3 never seemed to transition out of. The game is designed from the bottom up as tutorial software with a very nice interface, but manages to retain the fun factor its predecessors got so right.

For first timers, picking up the game can seem like a rather daunting task. Rocksmith does its best to ease players into the experience with a rather inventive dynamic difficulty system that not only understands how well you’re doing but scales itself to offer an ever-increasing challenge. Every song is broken up into segments with their own gradient of difficulty that evolves as you play. This means that the game can recognize which stanzas you’re struggling with and tune the challenge independently, while offering a full play experience for more simple sections.

Compared to the very linear and sometimes impassable difficulty structures of other games this is an absolute revolution and dramatically changes the experience. Players no longer need to face the awkwardness of transitioning between medium and hard, they just play the song to the best of their ability and get pushed just enough to progress towards complete mastery. This system does wonders for the game, making it not only consistently engaging, but immensely rewarding each and every time you play. Watching the note structures advance into more and more complicated arrangements with each playthrough is a satisfying experience and one that can’t be matched by playing of sheet music or tablature.

As someone who took guitar lessons for two years in my youth I was never able to fully grasp a complete song. Like so many other wannabes I fell prey to the apathy of practice and was never dedicated enough to see a track through to perfection; all the theory in the world won’t help you unless you put in the effort, and Rocksmith succeeds by making that process enjoyable.

With clearly outlined progress Rocksmith has managed to turn the tedium of rehearsal into its own form of gratification as you watch yourself get better, even within a single play. This is the key to how Rocksmith works and is the sole reason why in a few meager days of playing I’ve been able to master a couple songs to the point where I no longer need the game to play them at all.