Product Review

Product Information Ubisoft's musical instrument sim designed to work with real guitars returns with more than 50 new songs, a variety of new and updated modes, and a completely redesigned interface in Rocksmith 2014 Edition. While the game's action takes the form of a color-coded "note highway" that should be familiar to anyone who played Guitar Hero or Rock Band, and the new interface has been designed to be clearer, faster, and easier to use for those who cannot read sheet music, many of the changes in Rocksmith 2014 were made with more experienced guitar players in mind. The graduated difficulty settings from the original Rocksmith are gone, letting experienced guitarists immediately jump to the appropriate challenge, and the Session mode finds the in-game band adjusting on the fly as players improvise and jam. Meanwhile, the revamped Master mode lets gamers attempt to take on songs entirely from memory. Plenty of help remains for those who have never played a guitar before, with the Riff Repeater allowing players to focus on specific segments of songs and adjust the difficulty and speed of the music on the fly, while the Guitarcade mini-games return with new activities to help users fine-tune their chords and techniques.