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" Release Date: October 22 (North America), October 25 (Europe) Platforms available on: Xbox 360, PS3, PC Developer: Ubisoft Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: Rhythm / Teaching With a wealth of improvements and a streamlined learning experience, Ubisoft been pitching Rocksmith 2014 as the sequel equivalent of Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed 2. It&amp;#039;s certainly a bold claim, but one that&amp;#039;s hard to argue with when you experience first-hand just how beneficial Rocksmith&amp;#039;s improvements are to aspiring guitarists. That said, despite rocking more changes than the lineup of Fleetwood Mac, the core Rocksmith 2014 gameplay experience is actually very similar to its predecessor.  Notes fall down the screen, the position and colour of which correspond to frets and strings on the guitar.  It&amp;#039;s kind of like Guitar Hero for grown-ups, replacing plastic peripherals with authentic instruments, which can be plugged into consoles and PCs with a special adaptor packaged with the game. Once you get used the layout, something which shouldn&amp;#039;t faze rhythm action aficionados, users are eased into songs through the game&amp;#039;s sliding difficulty scale, unlocking additional notes, chords and techniques as they improve. Successfully nailing the opening to &amp;#039;Blitzkrieg Bop&amp;#039;, or hitting the right notes on &amp;#039;We Are the Champions&amp;#039; is a hugely rewarding experience, until, of course, you hit a wall and the game begins to overwhelm. Despite rocking more changes than the lineup of Fleetwood Mac, the core Rocksmith 2014 gameplay experience is actually very similar to its predecessor As the screen zooms in and out to incorporate more of the guitar neck, and chords start popping up left, right and centre, playing guitar once again feels like a distant dream.  Fortunately, it&amp;#039;s right about now when you start to see the benefits of Rocksmith 2014&amp;#039;s redesigned menu systems. The most helpful aid is a returning feature called Riff Repeater, which lets users practise custom sections of each song, slowing down tricky parts and adjusting the difficulty level accordingly.  Tucked away as it was in one of the original Rocksmith&amp;#039;s menu screens, it can now be accessed in an instant, simply by pausing a song. It&amp;#039;s much more in tune with how people actually learn new songs, practising sections bit by bit, before jamming along to the entire thing. If it&amp;#039;s the chords that are giving you problems, users can instantly access the Chord Book for a look at which ones feature in each number. Likewise, the game identifies brand new techniques, and recommends specific lessons for each individual track, either before you start playing, or when you hit the pause button.  While none of these features are new to Rocksmith 2014, they were previously hidden away in convoluted menu screens, behind a wall of infuriating loading times. It makes it so much easier to identify what&amp;#039;s holding you back in a specific song, and quickly get around to putting it right.  Even something as trivial as tuning the guitar has been improved, eliminating the need to tweak strings before every song, unless it&amp;#039;s played in a different key. It really sums up the Rocksmith 2014 experience. Everything is quick, fast and accessible in an instant.  As for the soundtrack, it&amp;#039;s difficult to say whether it&amp;#039;s better than the original, but it&amp;#039;s certainly no worse, featuring a wide variety of songs from the 1960s until the present day. Personal favourites include Radiohead&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Paranoid Android&amp;#039;, Aerosmith&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Walk This Way&amp;#039; and Kiss classic &amp;#039;Rock and Roll All Nite&amp;#039;, but there&amp;#039;s also plenty of hardcore metal tunes from the likes of Mastodon and Pantera, as well as tracks by Oasis, Weezer, Jack White and Arctic Monkeys. If you have the original Rocksmith, we&amp;#039;d definitely recommend paying a fee to transfer the soundtrack over to the new game, because that way you&amp;#039;ll benefit from the redesigned user-interface.  Everything in Rocksmith 2014 is quick, fast and accessible in an instant Guitarcade mini-games return with increased production values, covering a wider variety of techniques. And while it sounds unlikely that you&amp;#039;ll learn anything by killing zombies in an on-rails shooter, or shooting cowboys by plucking different strings, the Guitarcade lessons are invaluable. Unique, useful and utterly ridiculous, Guitarcade not only proves to be a great learning tool for rookies, but, thanks to online leaderboards, it&amp;#039;s also an addictive way to hone skills if you&amp;#039;re a seasoned guitarist.  Experienced guitar players will also benefit from Session Mode, which lets you jam with a dynamic virtual band. Slightly beyond my personal skill level, Session Mode gives users a greater insight into creating original music, which makes it a good starting point for players with aspirations of joining a band. With the option to learn bass, lead and rhythm guitar out of the box, non-stop custom playlists, and lessons that are broken down into skippable parts,Rocksmith 2014 really does offer something to guitarists of all skill levels. Learning solos, nailing those chords and mastering techniques isn&amp;#039;t easy, but Rocksmith 2014 gives users a fighting chance of leaving the garage behind and securing some gigs.   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/review/a530413/rocksmith-2014-review-xbox-360-a-finely-tuned-teaching-tool/>