I really feel that this game had promise, but also feel that I've had the worst customer service ever for a video game.
It has so much going for it and, out of the box, you get to make music with a real instrument. I'd taken lessons three years ago and had an acoustic guitar, but I'd not touched it since my son was born. I went out and found a gently used Epiphone Traditional Pro Les Paul from Guitar Center. (It was a great experience. Anthony Bender at the store in Southcenter in the Seattle area was fabulous.)
I've had some musical training in college, so I felt that I was going to be ahead of the curve. However, what started out as a great promise became an exercise in futility.
My first frustration came from the interface. Granted, it can be customized to reflect the strings as they are or reflect how guitar tablature works. (With the bass notes on the bottom.) However, what you can't change is how the the music comes at you on the screen. It has a type of forced perspective where the notes are coming from a small point in the distance and expand towards you as you need to prepare to play them.
The problem? While the strings are color-coded, the forced-perspective can make it hard to tell which fret is to be used. You can be sure that it's the third fret you're to have your finger on, but then you realize that it's the second.
I tried to put this behind me and learned some songs. After you complete some music to the game's satisfaction and standards, you get to play in a "venue." This is a chance for you to show off what you've learned. However, if you play three songs to get to a venue, by the time you've gotten to the venue, you're skill level might have increased and now you have lots of new notes and musical styles that were introduced that you never got to practice.
How on earth are you supposed to feel comfortable "showing off" in a venue if the target of excellence keeps moving?
You are shown the strings to play and the fret to hold down however, you've never told which finger (or fingers) might best be suited to use. While I can appreciate the game letting me use my judgement, I'd like an expert to (at the very least) give me a hint.
There are a number of challenges that you can play. They're as much fun as learning songs. In some ways, I like them more because they teach me finger patterns. While there's a rehearsal mode for the songs, there's not a rehearsal mode for the challenges. So, if you're trying to figure out the finger patterns in the Hammer-On and Pull-Off Challenge, it goes by so fast that it's nearly impossible to see them. If you try to skip a note so that you can see them, the notes are removed because it assumes you need more practice. If they'd remove one or two notes, that'd work, but they remove so many that you can't really figure out the pattern.
Some challenges I've played nearly spot on (the Slide Challenge) but I've had a score of zero. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Ducks, is a game that acts like a Space Invaders style shooter. When I first played it, the notes were all wrong. I read the FAQ and took my guitar to be intonated. Done. It seemed to work, but only for a while.
The songs are rather eclectic but enjoyable. However, if you're practicing a song, get through it to get to the next one, if you want to go back and practice it, the number of hoops you have to jump through to do this is mind boggling complex. Not only that, but the songs are presented to you in alphabetical order. So, if you don't remember the song title, you're out of luck.
Then, I got to the point where I couldn't get a score high enough an individual song to get to the venue. It turns out that, to get the high score, you actually needed to get through some more of the challenges. However, in the song, I'm having to bounce up and down the fretboard. Yes, this is called anchoring, their little anchoring challenge did little to prepare me.
In defeat, I thought I'd try to go to the forums to seek the assistance of other users.
I created a login on the website only to find out that I'd had one from another game that I'd played. It turns out that you can't change the login name, so I created a new account. When I tried to log on, I got this message:
Something went wrong, please try again later. If this problem persists please contact our administrators.
I navigated through their maze of online help and found the place to create a helpdesk ticket. I was told that this was a known issue and I'd be contacted when a solution was found and the helpdesk ticket was closed. Closed! I waited a day, then two days, and then three days. No fix. I created a new ticket. I was told not to do this and it was closed as a duplicate ticket. The original incident was opened on February 2nd, 2012. It's nearly May (two days away) and I still get the error and I can't log in to ask others for their help.
I spent a nice chunk of change on the game. Granted, this included that nifty guitar cable (that works with my Mac and Garage Band/Logic Pro) so, I understand the cost. But, I also picked up a (new to me) used guitar, and bought some XBox Live points. I've invested my time, money, and effort into this endeavor based on their promises and I've come away disappointed.
I really feel that this game had promise, but, I also feel that I've been treated very poorly and gotten the worst customer service ever.
I've heard that there's another game out coming like this from a different publisher. I hope to give them a shot. Right now, they can't be any worse in my mind.