Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

When the first Rocksmith came out, I was so excited the technology existed to make a game like it. I followed the development of it and got more hyped every day until release. I bought myself a Yamaha Pacifica the day of it's release and started playing. And the game was AWESOME. I could play an actual guitar (terribly, mind you) and the game would actually hear the notes I was playing (instead of how Rockband 3 had done theirs. The execution was more frustrating than cool, but it wasn't a complete waste as I can still use the Rockband electric guitar to play. It's just so heavy :/) However, once the honeymoon period wore off with the first game, I started to notice a few things I wish would change. First, as anyone who has played the first game knows - the loading times were abhorrent. Awful. Bordering on abuse. The menu system left basically...everything to be desired. You could unlock guitarcade games, but I certainly had no idea how (I had to go online to figure out how to unlock all of them.) I couldn't figure out a way to practice a part of a song that I couldn't quite get. It was an awesome program, but it was a chore to use. I'd often look at my guitar and PS3 and think to myself: "Man, I want to play guitar, but I don't want to have to wait for everything to load." I loved the concept and MOST of the execution of the first game, but never found myself really wanting to play it. I loved that it existed...but didn't love IT. Rocksmith 2014 has addressed pretty much all those problems. In a word (or two), it is exponentially better. The little bit of latency I could never quite get rid of from the first, gone. It's just gone. The sound comes instantly through my speakers (HDMI to tv, Audio through component to my ancient receiver.) The menus are vastly improved. There isn't a career mode anymore (I'm not sure whether I like that or not.) Instead, the game guides you to different places it thinks will help you improve, and rewards you when you complete them. This allows you to unlock things like skins for amps or different fretboard options (which is actually really cool) So it feels less like a...game. But it feels much more rewarding. The lessons are so awesome. I'm terrible at guitar, but I decided I would try one of the hardest lessons on there (double finger tapping) and I actually did fairly well on the first part of the lesson. Then shifting while doing it came, and I could only look at the screen and dream that some day I will be good enough to do that. The lessons are clearly laid out, and there is a real sense of progression both watching and completing them. These are worth the price of admission alone, in my opinion. I imported all my Rocksmith 1 songs (which didn't even require me to put my RS1 disc in, it was just a download.) This cost me 10 dollars on PSN, and was something like a 250 Mb install. While I understand people will be upset for having to pay 10 dollars for something they already bought, I feel fine with it. A lot of work went into making the songs tighter and more feature filled, along with licensing them all over again. 10 dollars for something around 50 songs is a bargain, whether you've already played them or not. Another very cool thing is there aren't just two tunings in this. In the original, there was E standard and Drop D. In here there are far more. I didn't count, but there are a lot of tunings the game will recognize. There is actually a lot more I want to cover in this review, like session mode (it really does make you feel like a rock star.) Chord charts, the guitarcade games in more detail, the awesome amount of little details (like when making a custom tone, the knobs and dials on the virtual pedals actually move when you're tuning them around! Love it) Other reviewers are going to go into more depth than I can. More experienced players will be able to weigh in on different aspects I haven't even touched. However, I think the most important thing to take away is while I'm writing this review, I'm really, really wanting to get back to playing the game. The original was a 4/5 stars to me. Flawed, but really cool. This game trumps the originals in every way, and after only a few hours of playing it, I couldn't imagine going back. If you're on the fence, buy it. If you want to have an interactive and fun way to learn guitar, buy it. If you're lazy and have always wanted to learn guitar, buy it If you have played guitar for ten years but want to learn another style, buy it. If you don't have hands, don't buy it. This game isn't for you.