Boegiboe and Jason introduced me to Rocksmith last night and I’m now doing mental calculus in my head about where we’d put the guitar and where we’d put the bass and whether we’d play the game half as much as we played the various Guitar Heroes/Rock Bands (if we did, you see, the investment would be worth it in a heartbeat).
One of the things we noted was that we are only now figuring out what video games can do… Rocksmith can teach you how to play a guitar. Typing of the Dead could teach you how to touch type. Golly, what will tomorrow’s video games leave us able to do?
Assuming, of course, they don’t just become some form of VR goggles with full bodysuit rumble technology. (At that point civilization will cease.)
So… what are you playing?
Rocksmith is incredible. It doesn’t teach you nearly everything, but it does teach you something, and that something is applicable to an activity that has value independent of computers.
Luckily, I don’t think GTA teaches you anything.Report
Actually, GTA 3 taught me how to parse multi-lane traffic so that I could actually drive in Co Springs (and even Denver!). Of course, I also had to do some unlearning… *looks sheepish*Report
Ready to graduate to Gran Turismo?
I’m going to get Rocksmith today! Always wanted to learn guitar.Report
Actually now that I think about it, my driving was somewhat negatively affected by Gran Turismo as well. I only ever played the first one, and hadn’t been driving a real car for a while. When I finally got behind the wheel again, it felt a little odd that I wasn’t supposed to mash on the accelerator as soon as I wanted to go anywhere at all.Report
I am not playing anything because you, Jaybird, are the only person I feel comfortable pestering for help on FB games. But we will be playing board games tonight!
Also, just to put this down on our permanent record, the reason I would be playing bass on Rocksmith is because UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE, I got rhythm. And not for any other reason. *gives Jaybird The Look*Report
We ended up playing that trailor park management game that Jaybird HATES. Mwahahahahaha.Report
PS I won handily.Report
You people.Report
My 6 y/o daughter surprised me and said she wanted a guitar for Christmas, soon after I saw a blurb about Rocksmith on Steam. I might end up getting both this season.Report
Here, let me sell it juuust a little bit more:
The first thing Rocksmith does is help you tune the guitar.Report
Well, Kid and I played this yesterday. It wasn’t as fun and as engaging as I’d hope. I still might make it through with enough discipline for it to do some good. Still, not as entertaining as it should be.
I haven’t figured out how to use more than one profile without logging in on a different PS account. There also doesn’t seem to be a way to easily reset difficulty levels. That means that if you level up on a game, you can’t reset it for your little one.
I’m not sure this is worth the eighty bucks for the game. I’m not ready to trash it, but my expectations sure have lowered.Report
Oooh, that’s troublesome. I learn much more slowly than Maribou does…Report
I think you are right about the difficulty in changing profiles. The game is also available on PC. For the original Rocksmith, there were latency issues on the PS3. This was worse when using an HDMI cable. The best solution was supposed to be using external speakers, though I did not have external speakers to use.
I ended up getting a PC copy. The latency was reduced to a more tolerable level. It is also easy to change profiles.
I enjoyed it well enough, but I realized I did not want to be a rock guitarist. I prefer country blues finger style, and related styles, so the software does not get much use.Report
Starting a kid on a guitar that early is kinda troublesome. A standard guitar is too big. If you want an electric, I’d look at one of those little Ibanez MiKro guitars. Only I’d replace the pickups and put in a better volume knob. Check the fretting, too. Report
There’s this paper-and-pencil game I used to play when I was little. You and I each choose a five-letter word. Then we alternate guessing five-letter words, and are told “this many letters match at the same position, this many letters matches at a different position” (like, if your word is “parka” and I guess “racks”, that’s two at the same position and one at another one.) Whoever guesses the other person’s word first wins.
It turns out there’s a “You guess the computer’s word” version of this game for the Roku. Very addictive.Report
My seventh-grade English teacher taught us that game. He called it Jotto, which is what I’ve called since then. He even gave us a quiz one day which was to solve the game given a number of preselected words. I remember the answer was “ANKLE” and realized that those letters can only spell one valid word. That game helped me a lot with my analysis skills. On long road trips when I’m driving, I ask Jason to play it with me to give the bored part of my brain something to do.Report
ANKLE” and realized that those letters can only spell one valid word.
…I’ll be damned.
I don’t know what it says about me, that I had to double-check this for myself.Report
As long as there are no proper names allowedReport
I just assumed it was like Scrabble in that respect.Report
One cool trick is to find a set of words with minimal shared letters between them, and then use those to eliminate vowels and common letters. However, I’ve never come up with a set of five five-letter words that cover 25 letters of the alphabet.
Can you? 😉Report
Typing of the Dead, despite the best efforts of the adults in my life, did not teach me to touch-type. MMOs taught me to touch-type.
I’ve been playing Europa Universalis IV. It’s teaching me the significance of the Panama and Suez canals.Report
This weekend, my son talked me into taking advantage of a buy 2 get 1 free sale at Gamestop. I got myself a copy of Darksiders II. It is a combination of the wall running of Prince of Persia, combat of God of War, and dungeons from Legend of Zelda. I have only put in a couple hours, but so far, so good. I will have to see how it holds up at higher levels. If I can learn to stop trying to use the right analog stick to dodge roll, I will be in good shape.
I am also most of the way through Nightmare level of Diablo 3. I do not know if I will stick around through Hell and Inferno, now that I have started another game to distract me.Report
Divinity Dragon Commander.. oddly not as replayable as one would think.Report
There are two versions of Rocksmith, the most recent one, Rocksmith 2014, having just come out. I think I’m going to like the new version better, but I kinda miss the scoring of the older one.
For me, the reason Rocksmith was such a game-changer in learning guitar was that it gave me something difficult enough to focus on that I could ignore the pain in my fingertips until I got calluses.
The most satisfaction I got was the very few times I got a song to “Master level,” at which time you can play in Master Mode, where it doesn’t tell you what notes to play. You just have to do the whole song from memory along with the other tracks. It’s a great feeling because, the fact is, you are not playing a video game anymore. You are just practicing a song on your guitar.Report