Game Preview: 5 Things You're Gonna Love About "Rocksmith"

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The guitar video game is making a comeback.

Yeah, we thought it died with Guitar Hero, too, and it's not like anyone was even the least bit saddened. Really, how many times can you strum a plastic, Crayola-colored guitar before wondering why the hell you're strumming a plastic, Crayola-colored guitar?

Good thing Ubisoft's attempt at a guitar game won't have some cheap piece of plastic that you'll pretend is an actual guitar. Rocksmith, which drops in October, comes with a real electric guitar, which means you'll walk into a store for a video game and walk out feeling a little bit closer to living out your dream of being Lenny Kravitz.

After seeing the game twice, we can tell you the real guitar's just one of the reasons why this game will rock...

Minimal Equipment

Anyone who's ever played electric guitar knows you actually need a lot of equipment. There's the guitar, the amp, a messy cluster of wires, sheet music, effects boxes, and some other stuff weíre probably missing. By the time you collect all that crap, you've missed four dates, burned through three paychecks and you barely have the heart to figure out how to read that wild collection of grids and dots (tablature, they call it in the music biz) that shows you how to make beautiful music.

But Rocksmith gets rid of all that. No amp needed; just one wire running from electric guitar to console of your choice. The in-song interface places the fretboard portion of a guitar in front of a notes highway, and while it looks daunting, it's easy to figure out in practice.

Free Guitar Lessons

Ok, so they're not actually free. You still have to shell out for the game. But you will learn a thing or two when you play Rocksmith, and we don't mean how to maximize your "Star Power." Ubisoft wants to teach you to play the guitar, and it just may succeed.

That massacre called Powergig tried this all last winter and failed miserably. But Rocksmith does this all in a different way. A series of minigames drill you on the fundamentals, but aside from that, youíre largely thrown straight into songs. Sounds daunting, right? It's not. You just play the notes as they hit the virtual fretboard, and somehow, some way, you move closer and closer to becoming a real life rock star. We didnít believe it either. But then creative director Paul Cross told us that he'd never picked up a guitar before working on this game.

Trust us, he's now pretty good.

You Won't Feel Stupid

Rocksmith makes sure of that. Remember how Guitar Hero would cut its music, suffocate its volume and do every thing possible to let you know you pressed the wrong button...we mean played the wrong note? This game doesn't do that. Instead, you hear the wrong note you played (the wonders of working with a real guitar, right?), and the music keeps moving in the background. Good thing, too, because weíre betting a lot of people are going to hit a lot of wrong notes in their first days with the game.

Adaptable Difficulty

There are no difficulty settings in Rocksmith. The game just gauges how well—or poorly—you're playing and adjusts itself accordingly. That means you won't have to miserably drop to some "Rookie" setting after struggling over and over. And you won't have to raise things once you've "mastered" some medium setting, only to find that the notes are just flying too fast.

Rocksmith starts by giving you just one note at a time, and once you're doing that well, the game lets things get slightly more challenging, throwing two notes, then chords, and then all of a sudden, solos. It's still plenty challenging, but you're at least semi-ready for each challenge as it comes.

A Real Freaking Guitar

Just because it bears repeating, you play this game with a REAL GUITAR. Ubisoft is selling Rocksmith in a $199.99 bundle with a Les Paul Epiphone electric guitar, which feels steep, until you consider that you once spent three bills on plastic guitars. And if you happen to have an electric sitting in a corner somewhere, this game will work with that, too.

Just think about that for 10 seconds. All those times you rocked out to Nirvana on an air guitar. And now, you can do it with a real one—and eventually sound good doing it. Yeah, that's music to our ears.