Review: Bandfuse: Rock Legends (PS3)

Music, suffice it to say, has always been a big part of my life. Long time readers know that my gold standard for a game's soundtrack is one that I would want to throw into the CD player in my car and drive down the road with it. Back in junior high school, I took up the guitar, since I didn't necessarily want to be in band and I did want to learn at least some instrument. I've kept up with it off and on over the years, picked up a couple guitars along the way, and learned to pick out a few songs here and there. When the big rhythm game fever hit with Guitar Hero, I knew that it might have some small application with actual guitar work, but more along the lines of finger speed and timing.

Rocksmith suggested a possibility for actual guitar training, but the technical issues of signal delay turned a lot of people off to that title. Now, BandFuse: Rock Legends takes a stab at the music game/trainer genre and nails it pretty thoroughly.

Let's get the technical side out of the way first. Much like Rocksmith, BandFuse uses a cable with a USB connector on one end and a 1/4” audio jack on the other. Theoretically, if your friends have a copy of BandFuse, they can bring over instruments and their own cables or a USB mic and you can rock out as a band with lead and rhythm guitars, bass, and vocals. I didn't have the opportunity to test with multiple instruments or with a mic. I can say that with my existing guitar, I didn't observe any of the delay issues that plagued Rocksmith. Notes registered responsively and without any error that I could attribute to the hardware. The cable is plenty long, so you can probably find the optimal distance to the TV very quickly.

When it comes to the actual playing of music, even experienced musicians are probably going to want to go through the early tutorials, if for no other reason than to familiarize themselves with the interface. It's not quite like Guitar Hero or RockBand, and despite the use of tabulature in the game, it's not always an easy read until you get the game's coloration scheme down. Once you have, the game offers up 55 different tracks for just straight practice or in a “tour mode” game which should be familiar to long time players of previous titles in the genre. Another 20 tracks are available as DLC, including a recently released clutch of songs by Jimi Hendrix. Difficulty changes what you have to play, so where you might be holding a note for a while on Easy, you're going to be playing your own cover of the song at higher levels. Looking at the song list, there's some tunes in there that might not necessarily be popular now, and might not have been super popular when they were released, but each track has a description of what makes it worth learning to play. The emphasis is on a variety of techniques, and their approach certainly lends itself not only to rock, but other genres of music as well.

When practicing tracks, BandFuse can adjust the speed of the playback to ensure that you're learning the music and getting it down right before bringing it back up incrementally to the correct speed. If you're wanting to practice without necessarily worrying about songs, the game also provides a series of scales which you can use as exercises to help improve your playing in other ways. If I have any complaint, it's that I'd like to be able to port DLC tracks to other systems if it ever comes around to a new version of the game on PS4.

The various tutorial videos are useful for those people who want to try and learn at least a little from some of the big names in rock music. Names like Slash and Zakk Wylde are recognizable to anybody with a peripheral knowledge of rock music, but interviews with Bootsy Collins (Parliament) and Mike Ness (Social Distortion) are no less important. Some of the interviews and videos also have lessons with them. Special attention should be paid to those particular videos, since you might be seeing notes passing by on the screen and you'll be struggling to catch up. I feel no shame in saying I cannot keep up with Mike Ness after watching one of his tutorial/lesson videos, but it does give you something to shoot for.

Ultimately, BandFuse: Rock Legends is much like any sort of endeavor with learning or improving your skills in an instrument. You get out of it what you put into it, and if you want to learn how to shred, you're going to have to put in the time. I respect Realta for not trying to follow Ubisoft's “get better in 60 days or we'll refund you” pitch. There's no pressure, no digging or prodding, only the lessons and the tunes to practice. See you at Carnegie Hall.

- Axel Cushing

The Good:
- Excellent track list, with descriptions of why they're worth learning
- Modern tab music layout
- Plenty of tutorial and music geek candy in videos
- No appreciable signal delay present in cable

The Bad:
- DLC portability is a bit of a question mark

Score: 9.5 / 10