Revenue on music games is down and Activision axed the Guitar Hero franchise, but all that seems to be taken by Ubisoft as an opportunity as they announce Rocksmith – the latest music game to attempt to use a real guitar.
Details as to how the game will work or what’s on the track list are sparse right now, what we do know is that the game will come in two versions, one will allow you to connect any guitar with a standard 1/4″ jack straight to your gaming console or PC and the other will, naturally, come with a full blown electric guitar to call your own.
Unlike traditional guitar games with difficulty levels, Ubisoft is promising that Rocksmith will be adaptive, feeding you more notes, faster as your skill improves. Ubi is also rigging the game as a learning experience with no way to fail and mini-games to help you with your fingering and speed.
It’ll be interesting to see how this will all work in practice since Guitar Rising on the PC promised a lot then turned to vaporware rather quickly. Similarly, Power Gig: Rise of the Six String made big promises only to fizzle out and ended up with review scores in the mid 30′s out of 100.
Can Ubisoft over-come the weakness inherent in the music gaming market? We should know by Fall, 2011.
Jonah Falcon is a blogger for TMRzoo and GameStooge.com and covers all gaming consoles and platforms including Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii, Sony PSP and computer games designed for Mac OS, Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems. Jonah provides his readers with reviews, previews and up to date gaming industry news and rumors.
