Rocksmith 2014 Update

I had a miserable Rocksmith night last night. I wasn't hitting anything cleanly and the software had the nerve to objectively score me accordingly. What if I was, like, really, really trying my bestest? Doesn't that count for something?  Can I at least get a hug, Ubisoft?  

Fine.

Overall, things are going ok. I'm not going to do a full on review of this software. There are lots of folks out there doing that already with a lot more care and detail than I would put into it.  Check out Gallagher's Rocksmith Journey blog (link in sidebar) for some great info on the title. I stumbled across his site when, after a particularly spectacular failure during a Master Mode attempt of Blitzkrieg Bop I could have sworn I actually got "booed". 

Hey, I couldn't blame them for booing me - they paid good money to see me rock out and instead I alternate between staring stupidly into the middle distance and beating out chords that only have an incidental association with the song I was playing. I didn't know if the sound I was hearing was just general "large crowd milling about" noise or actual displeasure, and this guy's blog was one of the few places out there that directly said that booing was a possibility.  If the booing is real, I'm cool with that. Anything beats the original Rocksmith crowd response to a blown song during a gig - five thousand dopplegangers silently swaying and just staring at you with their dead eyes... (shudder).

Anyway, check out his blog. It's good stuff. 

Some notes from my recent experience with Rocksmith 2014:

• Jeebus, Ubisoft, what is the deal with demanding I cycle through twelve hundred effects pedals? I realize you are proud of the width and depth of this part of the code, but, by making each one a mission... Well, you are coming across as desperate and a little "Smell the Glass”.
• I have no idea what the software wants me to do to "Use rack gear". I am using it. I played with the sliders, depopulated all the pedals, put in four rack units (trying all kinds in different orders), saved and reloaded, etc... Nothing seems to work - I might just be missing something. 
• The arcade games in general are awesome. Whoever wrote the dialogue for the damsel/scientist in distress and evil bad guy in Return to Castle Chordead deserves some kind of design award cuz that stuff is straight up gold!
• I hope their next update deals with the process for moving between tunings that significantly change the mechanical loading on the guitar neck (E standard to Eb drop Db, say). I am finding my Ibenez needs to be put through the RS tuning process three times before the stresses equalize enough to the point where the song acknowledges the notes are being played correctly during a song. Adding one more sequential check on each of the six strings after the last string is “tuned” would go a long way to making sure the first couple are not way out.
• I also hope there is a way to save multiple set lists for Free Play mode.  It would be nice to be able to quickly jump to a pre-set group of slow and simple stuff to get my confidence back after right arm and left wrist go numb after too many old-guy attempts at Blink-182 songs or whatever. 
• Please, Microsoft or Ubisoft or whoever, you have to quit it with the Kinect "Feeling tired or sore?" messages. I am perfectly capable of determining my own break times. If it’s a legal thing that has to stay if the Kinect is on, make it smaller and give us the option of where on the screen it pops up.

Hmm… Perhaps I should have spaced out those last two bullets a bit…

I have tons of tunes I have not touched yet. I think I am just going to hit the songs that Rocksmith recommends for a while and see where that takes me instead of trying to “master” any more right now.

Also, I have not tried anything yet with the bass, so I don't know yet what that's like. Looking forward to it though.  More later.