Ubisoft revealed in their blog the pending release of Rocksmith 2014, which has been tweaked considerably for a more accessible learning experience.
If you have played Rocksmith, you know the frustration of playing the halfway rhythm game/learning software and its steep difficulty curve. Although the game received rave reviews, it didn’t seem like it taught that many people how to play. Ultimately, it seemed like the game needed to move away from its Guitar Hero roots and go HAM on the teaching aspect.
Ubisoft promises that they have done just that with their latest trailer for Rocksmith 2014. At the onset, the moment you plug your guitar into your PC or console via Ubisoft’s proprietary USB cable, Rocksmith will teach you the bare essentials.
Rocksmith 2014 retains the tablature visualization interface, so that you get used to reading guitar notation. What’s new is the game reacts dynamically to how well you play and adjusts the difficulty accordingly.
In connection to this, the game has a new Learn-A-Song Mode. The game will recommend a song for you to learn on its own, and based on your playing ability, will recommend techniques and lessons connected to your problem areas. It will also prepare lessons for new note and techniques that have not been taught to you yet.
There is also a Riff Repeater Mode, that lets you choose a song segment and control speed and difficulty settings. Again, the game AI will determine your skill level and raise or lower difficulty until you get it, and you can jump back in to the whole performance.
Finally, the game’s Master Mode will remove notes that you have already mastered from the screen, so that you can focus on the parts you are still working on. This part is what actually impressed me, because this means the game will let you learn from memory.
I’m sure Ubisoft consulted on actual teaching methodologies for this game, as it looks like something you could actually learn guitar from. Talk is cheap, though, so come October 22, we’ll find out if it can deliver on its promise.
Source: Ubisoft
