Rocksmith is a music video game produced by Ubisoft, released in October 2011 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms in North America. Rocksmith was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 during September 2012 in Australian and European markets and October 2012 in Japan. A Windows version was released on October 16, 2012, after several delays. The game's main feature is that, unlike other rhythm games such as Guitar Hero that require proprietary controllers to play, Rocksmith instead allows players to plug in virtually any electric guitar and play along via a USB adapter.
Rocksmith
In Rocksmith, players are shown a virtual fretboard with colored notes (represented as colored rectangles associated to specific guitar strings) on numbered lanes (corresponding to frets) to indicate what they should play on the guitar. The top portion of the screen graphically shows how the player has performed on the previous sections of the song and at what difficulty (the orange boxes), as well as the song's lyrics and the current score.
Guitar Hero is a series of rhythm games first released in 2005, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing primarily lead, bass, and rhythm guitar across numerous songs. Players match notes that scroll on-screen to colored fret buttons on the controller, strumming the controller in time to the music in order to score points, and keep the virtual audience excited. The games attempt to mimic many features of playing a real guitar, including the use of fast-fingering hammer-ons and pull-offs and the use of the whammy bar to alter the pitch of notes. Most games support single player modes, typically a Career mode to play through all the songs in the game, as well as competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes. With the introduction of Guitar Hero World Tour in 2008, the game includes support for a four-player band including vocals and drums. The series initially used mostly cover versions of songs created by WaveGroup Sound, but most recent titles feature soundtracks that are fully master recordings, and in some cases, special re-recordings, of the songs. Later titles in the series feature support for downloadable content in the form of new songs.
The controllers bundled with Guitar Hero releases (from left to right): Gibson SGs for Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II (PlayStation 2) and Gibson Explorer for Guitar Hero II (Xbox 360) and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PC)
The Gibson Les Paul Guitar controller bundled with Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 releases of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (pictured is the Xbox 360 guitar controller). A similar white Gibson Les Paul guitar controller is bundled with the Wii release, which requires the Wii Remote to be inserted in the back. For in-store demos on the Xbox 360, a wired Les Paul controller is used.
The "Guitar Grip", developed by Vicarious Visions for the Nintendo DS series Guitar Hero: On Tour provides four fret buttons for the game, while strumming is done on the DS touchscreen by use of a pick-shaped stylus.
Guitar Hero Arcade