As soon as you boot up RockSmith 2014, you'll notice is the new and improved interface. The menus and the interface have a much cleaner and simpler look. Gone are those horrible menus and long load times from the original game.
The game first asks you whether you played the original Rocksmith and what direction you want your guitar playing to go in: lead, rythm or bass.
Another thing you'll notice right away is that there are several new modes including Free Play and Session Mode. Session Mode allows you to jam with a virtual band minus the vocals. You can choose a type of drum kit, keyboardist, guitar player and bass player to jam with as you improvise. You can chose the type of scale and tempo to play and the band will play dynamically to whatever you are playing on the guitar. Session mode is great and really is a great way to explore your improvisational skills. The only downside is that you cannot record your playing.
A major complaint of the original Rocksmith I had was that you had to retune your guitar for every song regardless if they had the same tunings. All of the songs in the original Rocksmith only supported standard E and Drop D tuning whereas Rocksmith 2014 supports more types of tunings. Thankfully you no longer have to retune your guitar in between each song if the tunings are the same. In fact a new option in RS2014 is the Free Play mode which lets you play a setlist of songs with minimal loading times in between each song.
The setlist in RS2014 is a big improvement over the original game. There seems to a better variety of songs to play than the original game. The game features songs from Metal Gods like Iron Maiden and Avenged Sevenfold to Pop Punk Rock bands like Green Day and Paramore. Each song feels like it was specifically chosen based on its guitar and bass part instead of how frequently you hear it on the radio. People who still have their original Rocksmith game will be happy to know that almost all of the songs from the original game can be exported into RS2014 for a one time fee of $9.99. On top of that, all your old DLC from the original games automatically shows up in your music library when you load up RS2014. DLC is also something players can expect to see DLC (3-6 songs) every week. Upon writing this review, there already are thirteen new songs available for the game in the music store. My only complaint is that the individual song price of $2.99 seems too expensive compared to what other games have offered in the past.
In the original RS there was a career mode that would have you play a group of custom or randomly selected songs where you would need to meet a minimum score in order to advance to the next stage. RS2014 focuses more heavily on an open ended journey that lets you choose, which songs and skills you want to learn. Within each song in the game is a series of challenges and recommendations. For example certain songs feature bends or slides, so the game will recommend you do the proper guitar lesson prior to playing the song. It's little tips like these that make RS2014 such a great and polished sequel. I always felt with the original Rocksmith, that my guitar playing had platuead at certain points by having an artificial score barrier I needed to meet. With RS2014 I feel like my guitar playing has improved a lot in a very short period of time due to the fact that everything feels so seemelss and open ended in the game.
The riff repeater is back and better than ever. During any song you can pause the game and select a certain section of the song to learn. You can slow down the track, add more notes or increase/decrease the overall difficulty of the song. The riff repeater is one of the best teaching tools in the game and can help you learn a song or section of a song you've struggled with in the past.
RS2014 features new arcade mini games to help you build your skills. The original RS featured arcade games, which were fun, but the one's present in RS2014 are a step above the original. Everything from string picking to scales, slides and harmonics are covered in the mini games. They are not only fun to play, but really do help you build skill.
RS2014 is better than the original RS in every way. The presentation is slicker, the mini games are more fun and the frustration of waiting around for loading screens is finally gone. Who knows, maybe if I get good enough at guitar, I'll join a band during my midlife crisis years. If you haven't yet picked up a guitar or want to upgrade, you can do no better than RS2014.
- Siddharth Masand
Follow @jokeman23
The Good:
- Very clean and polished user interface
- Less time waiting and tuning you guitar
- Great setlist
- Almost all of the original RS songs and past DLC can be exported into RS2014
- Session Mode is Amazing
- Great mini games
- DLC is keeping the music library fresh
The Bad:
- No way of recording session mode
- DLC price is still seems too steep
