Post 15 March 2011

By DJSADERS

Rock is dead. Activision nuked the Guitar Hero franchise in February. Viacom washed its hands of the Rock Band franchise in November, selling off developer Harmonix to an investment firm. Fallen men and women of the six minute solo, we salute you.

But what's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? Is it a monster? It could be. Ubisoft has announced Rocksmith for Xbox 360 and PS3, a new string-thrashing sim that differs from its troubled peers in requiring you to actually use a real guitar.

According to the publisher's senior vice-president of marketing Tony Key, that difference will help the new game escapes the industry-wide collapse of peripheral-dependent music sims. Unlike Rock Band and Guitar Hero, Rocksmith is equal parts entertainment and education: after a few hours' playtime, you should be able to lay down some smoking riffs in reality.

That's the hope, anyway. "The dream of playing guitar compared to how many follow through - there's a big gap," Key told the Hollywood Reporter this morning. "We will create a new generation of guitar players."

Ubisoft is perhaps the leading third party publisher when it comes to self-help games like Your Shape: Fitness Evolved or My Fitness Coach on the Wii. By introducing real instruments, the company presumably hopes to replicate those successes in the rock sim genre.

What do you think? Personally, anything that does away with the need for awkward, space-consuming plastic Gibson mock-ups gets a thumbs-up from me.

Rocksmith is slated for release in September. Artists tipped to appear include the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Nirvana and the Animals.