Rocksmith 2014 Review PS4 (2015)

Rocksmith is back! And I for one am very glad, but this time in, the game is bigger, badder and better than ever as it joins the new generation of games on the titans, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One! Wait a second, I am sorry, but I am sure I can hear the murmurs of ‘what is Rocksmith?’ Well, it is one of the best ways to become a rock god in your home, preparing you for the blazing lights and world stages! This game can truly teach you how to play guitar! And, I am not talking about bashing buttons to the rhythm of a song, no, no, I mean putting your fingers in a chord shape, applying it a cross the strings, which you then strum or pluck – this is the real deal!

So how does it work? Well, first off you need a guitar with a pickup, which of course comes standard with an electric guitar, you know your typical Stratocaster or Telecaster and so on, but if you are looking to rock an acoustic, like our main man Frank Turner, then all you need to do is pop on a portable pickup – simples really! Once you have your ‘axe’ of choice, you plug in that bad boy using the special cable, known as Hercules, provided in the boxed edition of the game, to your console as you would a controller – even more simples!

The next bit is choosing one of three paths, lead, rhythm or bass guitar! If you are looking to strum, then rhythm is your choice. Want to noodle? Then lead is for you. And if you want to be the very backbone of a band, then bass is your faith!

But how does a game teach you? Well, similar to Guitar Hero it shows you on screen what to play and where during a song, but this time, you are physically playing the guitar, making a sound and learning a real life song that you can then play out in the real world to dazzle your friends and fans!

Something that was a blessing and a curse was that the game read your ability, which is great in some ways, but it did mean you had to always start at the novice level, which isn’t too much fun for the more advanced players, after all the game is set so all levels of players can thrash on the six string! So, now it is possible to choose your difficulty level!

The next step is choosing what tunes to wail on. And, man alive is there many, with 66 songs for your pickings to start from and even more to purchase via DLC. So what do you start with? Green Day or The Shins? What about Queen or Paramore? As you can tell, the options are very varied.

If you are not in the mood, or just fancy something different from learning a song, then you have 85 lessons at your fingertips to improve your guitaring skills!

We fell in love with Rocksmith back when it was released on the older generation consoles, and we seem to be falling head over heels all over again. Rocksmith 2014 has improved the issues its older brother had and added so much more, making it not only a perfect partner to learning new songs, but also a genuinely great way start playing guitar and improving from there! However, if you already have a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 you may find purchasing this isn’t quite necessary as the changes are few, apart from the odd bit of higher quality graphics and sound quality, but if you are wondering if you should get the game for the first time, then we couldn’t say yes more than enough – rock on fellow Bookers!

8 out of 10!

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