adamantypants
Member
Man I'm having to "game" this game a lot. Full disclosure, I've played guitar for 10~ish years on and off. I'm not as good as that makes it sound, but I have been the bassist of a metal band that covered Iron Maiden and Lamb of God.
Obviously this game isn't geared toward me. Nevertheless I have some complaints.
While the game is great fun, years of reading tabs makes me feel like I'm relearning the guitar again. And playing through songs I actually KNOW, seems impossible. Say it ain't so is one of the first Weezer songs I learned I failed this one pretty much instantly. Yes my fingerings are exactly the same. I just haven't gamed it properly. Maybe I'm paying too much attention to the notes. I can play my guitars without looking at the neck.
The game scaling is iffy at best. I first booted up Iron Maiden The Trooper on bass since I've actually covered it live in concert. It took me like 5 playthroughs to get to something that sounds vaguely familiar to what I know to be the song. I ended up playing the actual song without following what's on screen and I passed with 80ish percent accuracy. Good on the game.
On the other hand, I've tried sight reading songs that I don't know and the difficulty scales mid-song. That's great that it scales, but I've never heard these songs before and the game knows it! A 0% learned song shouldn't scale to the hard level first try. Most songs aren't too demanding but a sight read is hard.
I know this game wasn't developed for me so I shouldn't really complain. I was hoping it could teach me some things but in the few hours I've played, it's not looking better. Don't get me wrong, I still really enjoy this game. It's a ton of fun and will surely scratch my rock band itch. I'm just gonna have to treat it as a game rather than a training tool.
One final thing: don't be afraid to change fingerings. I played through the Minus the Bear song and near the solo there's some funny B string work. I don't know the song as I was sight reading this, but it seemed like a REALLY strange way to play the phrases. It was something on the B string like 7-10-7-12-7-15-7-17.
Dumb. Nobody would realistically play the song at that tempo with those fingerings. It's possible for sure but just really unnecessary. I highly doubt they consulted the songwriters on their preferred fingerings and they likely just transposed notes to the fingerboard.
These are just my first impressions though after maybe 3 hours of gametime. I'm looking forward to diving in deep this weekend
Obviously this game isn't geared toward me. Nevertheless I have some complaints.
While the game is great fun, years of reading tabs makes me feel like I'm relearning the guitar again. And playing through songs I actually KNOW, seems impossible. Say it ain't so is one of the first Weezer songs I learned I failed this one pretty much instantly. Yes my fingerings are exactly the same. I just haven't gamed it properly. Maybe I'm paying too much attention to the notes. I can play my guitars without looking at the neck.
The game scaling is iffy at best. I first booted up Iron Maiden The Trooper on bass since I've actually covered it live in concert. It took me like 5 playthroughs to get to something that sounds vaguely familiar to what I know to be the song. I ended up playing the actual song without following what's on screen and I passed with 80ish percent accuracy. Good on the game.
On the other hand, I've tried sight reading songs that I don't know and the difficulty scales mid-song. That's great that it scales, but I've never heard these songs before and the game knows it! A 0% learned song shouldn't scale to the hard level first try. Most songs aren't too demanding but a sight read is hard.
I know this game wasn't developed for me so I shouldn't really complain. I was hoping it could teach me some things but in the few hours I've played, it's not looking better. Don't get me wrong, I still really enjoy this game. It's a ton of fun and will surely scratch my rock band itch. I'm just gonna have to treat it as a game rather than a training tool.
One final thing: don't be afraid to change fingerings. I played through the Minus the Bear song and near the solo there's some funny B string work. I don't know the song as I was sight reading this, but it seemed like a REALLY strange way to play the phrases. It was something on the B string like 7-10-7-12-7-15-7-17.
Dumb. Nobody would realistically play the song at that tempo with those fingerings. It's possible for sure but just really unnecessary. I highly doubt they consulted the songwriters on their preferred fingerings and they likely just transposed notes to the fingerboard.
These are just my first impressions though after maybe 3 hours of gametime. I'm looking forward to diving in deep this weekend
