Have you heard about Rocksmith yet? Ubisoft is taking a crack at the music game genre. Depending on how you look at it, this is either really well timed or coming along at just the wrong moment. On the one hand, competing releases from the Rock Band and Guitar Hero camps aren’t coming out this year. On the other hand, there’s no competition because both Electronic Arts and Activision have been sensing some market saturation for these types of interactive experiences.
Fortunately for Ubisoft, Rocksmith‘s key “gimmick” is really more of an evolutionary step forward for music games. The fake, plastic guitar is gone along with the color-coded buttons. In its place is a USB converter cable that ships with the game; one end goes into your console and the other, into the quarter-inch audio output jack on any old electric guitar. The gameplay resembles Rock Band/Guitar Hero, except here the note highway is an actual guitar fretboard. The idea is that you’re essentially learning as you play, since the note highway offers a visual representation of where to place your fingers on the instrument. It probably won’t turn you into Jimi Hendrix, but going from zero skill to being able to pick up an axe and strum out David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” is kind of cool.
Only a handful of songs had been revealed until Ubisoft’s latest announcement. In addition to the aforementioned Bowie tune, there was also “House of the Rising Sun” (The Animals), “I Got Mine” (The Black Keys), “Slow Hands” (Interpol), “In Bloom” (Nirvana) and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (The Rolling Stones). That list is now exponentially longer, and the music is very much focused on newer bands and deeper cuts than you might expect. Check it out…
• Best Coast – When I’m With You
• Blur – Song 2
• The Black Keys – Next Girl
• The Boxer Rebellion – Step Out Of The Car
• Cream – Sunshine Of Your Love
• The Cribs – We Share The Same Skies
• The Cure – Boys Don’t Cry
• Jenny O – Well OK Honey
• Lynyrd Skynyrd – Sweet Home Alabama
• Nirvana – Breed
• Pixies – Where Is My Mind?
• Radiohead – High and Dry
• Red Fang – Number Thirteen
• The Rolling Stones – The Spider and the Fly
• Silversun Pickups – Panic Switch
• Soundgarden – Outshined
• Spoon – Me and The Bean
• Stone Temple Pilots – Vasoline
• Taddy Porter – Mean Bitch
• Titus Andronicus – A More Perfect Union
• White Denim – Burnished
• The White Stripes – Icky Thump
• Yellow Moon Band – Chimney
