Assassin's Creed 3 review

This review is a bitter sweet situation for me because of the incredible amount of love I have for this series. "Assassin's Creed 3" was my personal most anticipated title of this year. That being said, I'm going to have to be extremely harsh with it in terms of this review because there's no way my love of the franchise could possibly overlook the glaringly obvious problems with this game.

Of course, I will be speaking on the awesomeness as well, but just know that stuff's about to get really real.

I'll try to avoid spoilers if I can.

The good news is that this game is incredible. It's written well, the story does justice to the rest of the franchise and I'll be damned if it doesn't look better than previous "Assassin's" games as well. Everything has been turned up to 11 and Ubisoft spared no expense.

Both Boston and New York are wonderfully built and lovingly re-created in a way that is both impressive and expected in this franchise. You really do get to see what 18th century living was like, and for American fans this will be a treat to see the early colonization of their country.

As is standard in the franchise, several famous historical figures make appearances throughout the game. From Benjamin Franklin to Sam Adams and George Washington, each individual plays an integral, through-provoking part in the story. Except for maybe Ben Franklin, but he's the Leonardo da Vinci of the game.

Oh, and Desmond finally gets to go someplace other than the cushioned seat of  the Animus. We travel with him to New York, Brazil and even back to Italy where he was held in the first game by the modern-day Templar organization, Abstergo.

Honestly, the scale of the game and the sheer power behind it was extremely impressive and pleasing to someone who is a fan of the franchise.

With the addition of two new protagonists, Haytham and Connor Kenway, the game also has a deeper story line that breaches more on the topics of deception and right and wrong more than any other game in the series so far.

Pull out a dollar bill to see this guy from another angle.

Connor questions the propaganda that Sam Adams and his fellow patriots put out because it is dishonest and immoral, while Adams explains that it is necessary to combat the British rule. Connor also calls out the hypocrisy of their fight for freedom when they own slaves.

Haytham attacks the ideas of the Revolution at its core, and even provides completely logical reasons for George Washington to be replaced by a more capable individual. Clearly, the creators didn't want to pull punches and really wanted to expose a lot of historical truths much like they've done in previous games.

Where combat is concerned, the game is a little more streamlined, but also a little more complex.

 While your character can string together attacks, heavy enemies need to be slowly disarmed so that they can be killed more easily.

Also, guns are still available, but they require a long reload time, so the player can't count on just blasting their way through a situation like they previously could with Ezio. However, there are multiple ways other than the use of firearms to kill those around you that are just as effective.

With the silence of the rope dart that allows Connor to hang, pull and snare his enemies, you have an additional silent weapon to accompany your bow and arrow. The hatchet replaces the knife slot that was in previous games, and the weapon wheel is customizable so you can prepare yourself for any sort of engagement beforehand.

Did we mention that there is naval combat now? That's right, you can now sail the East Coast and Caribbean Seas to thwart pirates and stop evil doers. Not only that, you can upgrade your ship as well.

Connor's got a base of operations, like Ezio did with his villa, in the form of a settlement on the frontier. By visiting all the areas in the game, you can even recruit settlers from all around to improve your own settlement and up the amount of items you can trade or make to improve your home and the surrounding area.

Now for the bad news. I'm sorry to say that this section may even be longer than the good parts of the game.

Holy crap are there clipping issues with this game. I mean, really. I understand we've not really had steeple roofs in the franchise very much, but quite often I found Connor falling through them into nothingness. Be prepared to have a frustrating time running across these rooftops as the game often glitches when trying to climb all over them.

You'll find yourself avoiding the rooftops almost entirely during this game, unless you absolutely have to use them, because honestly, they're useless when getting away from enemiese.

Thankfully, the game has provided you with shortcuts through the buildings that you can exploit. But really, it's best to just avoid getting chased. You're better off standing and fighting.

The notoriety system has become more compartmentalized, giving you four levels. Incognito, Level 1 (where enemies sorta kinda notice you), Level 2 (where they will approach you quickly), and the incredibly tough Level 3 (where you are not safe no matter what you do).

Occasionally, you'll do these awesome three-person kill combos.

Should you find a town crier, you can be reduced to Incognito if you're Level 2. A Printer for wanted posters will eliminate Level 3 and only be available at Level 3. Wanted posters only take you down a single level. This would all matter if they were easy to find or come across. Which they really aren't. So good luck with that.

Too many collectables. Seriously. The pages of Ben Franklin's almanac, or almanacs depending on how you look at it, are super hard to collect. You know why? They freaking move. Yeah, when you spot one, you have maybe 30 seconds to try and get level with the piece of floating paper so that you can catch it. I mean, I was running directly under a page for four roofs because I couldn't get high enough to pounce on the flighty parchment.

You know what else? They disappear if you don't get them within the time limit, and respawn at a later time. So you can scream and shout at the game again and again if you don't get it the first time.

As for your settlement, I really found absolutely no need to do the trading system there, or even collect the settlers. I was there so little that none of it mattered. I was honestly there more times to do the naval missions (which are awesome by the way), than I was anything else.

Get this. If you send out a trading convoy, it has the possibility of getting attacked. If you don't go to the frontier, find the convoy, and protect it, you will lose the money and inventory. I'm serious. When I got there the first time I saw about 10 armed guards and shouted at my game, "WHAT ARE YOU HERE FOR IF NOT TO PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING?!"

Hunting is...pretty useless. I hunted a crap load of animals even before I got Connor to be an assassin and had 3,000 British pounds before I even had to really buy anything. The hunting, frontiersmen and brawler challenges all add spice like the Courtesan and Thieves Guild ones, but they're also just as pointless.

Again, you can recruit assassins and send them out to do missions and liberate states while training them to help you with missions. Certain assassins can be sharp shooters, brawlers and even start riots for you to cause a distraction. Too bad I never used them either. Seriously.

Oh, yeah, and remember how everyone complained about the traveling between locations in the first "Assassin's Creed" on horses and crap. Buckle up, that's back. Sure you can fast travel to certain locations, but be prepared for a five minute horse ride or a ten minute run somewhere. It's...painful.

The secondary objectives to get full synchronization range in difficulty from doable to completely asinine. It's not helped by the fact that the game itself is extremely unhelpful. Sometimes you'll do all the secondaries, and find that you don't get 100% because there's a hidden secondary of doing all of the secondaries in a single playthrough without starting over at a checkpoint. Seriously, it didn't tell me that during the mission that I had to do them all without restarting the mission to get 100%.

Sometimes the game glitches so poorly that the game won't even realize it's preventing you from continuing. The Paul Revere mission is a perfect example. During the mission, you ride with Revere to warn the patriots that the British are coming. Simple, right?

No. No it's not. Because Revere will have to follow you to each door to tell you if it's the right house. Guess what? Second time I had to do that? He just stopped telling me which house it is, so the mission would not go forward. I knew which one it was, but it wouldn't activate the door until Revere said it was the right house. We just stood in front of each door for several minutes, waiting for something that wasn't going to happen.

Those kinds of bugs will pop up every now and then. Sometimes the enemy will spawn so close a fire line will make it impossible to get to a location in the given time. Other times, things like the Revere incident will occur.

The problem with this game is that there's too much. Too many extraneous things to do.

Eliminate hunting, and no one would care. Why? Because a settler you get will hunt for you and you can sell those pelts instead. Or just limit hunting to the settlement entirely.

Eliminate the travel in the frontier. No one wants to do that.

Don't take out the naval missions, but get rid of the assassin recruits, or at least the missions for them.  Honestly, I rarely did those.

Get rid of some of the collectables, specifically the almanac pages. As the meme says, "Ain't nobody got time for that."

"Oh, let me just run right into this line of fire, no big deal."

If some of these changes were made, the game would be perfect. Unfortunately, it's not. This might be the most well written and creative of the "AC" games, but it feels like the most over-stuffed and poorly put together of them all.

I wanted to give it a 10. I really did, but I can't even give it a 9. It's a 7.5 or 8 if I'm being honest. A 9 feels too generous with the bugs and clipping that are too evident and frequent to be excusable. Especially when the bugs limit game progression. The annoyance I felt bumps it down a grade too. I've never gotten a headache when playing these games, but this "AC3" gave me one.

If you are a fan of the franchise, you need to buy this game because it's incredible. But, you will be disappointed in a lot of areas, frustrated beyond reason, and utterly furious at times. Be prepared for that, and enjoy what you can.

Hands on ZombiU

Aim for the head!

Ubisoft’s Wii U title that has been passed around and casually looked at by press and gamers is something of a mystery. At this year’s E3, I was able to watch some people play a mode of the game where a single player fought hordes of zombies that came in waves as they held a point down. What I got to experience first hand at the Penny Arcade Expo this weekend was an entirely different story.

Jumping into the shoes of a survivor, I had to escape Buckingham Palace and survive the zombie hordes within. Inside, I had to scrounge for ammo to go with my handgun and the Royal Guard carbine that I had looted off the ground. The people at the demo booth told me that the game relies heavily on survival and tactical instincts, making you really conserve your ammo and get down and dirty with the zombies if you have to.

That made sense as I only had eight rounds for my pistol and three rounds for my carbine. But what I did have was an unlimited supply of skull bashings thanks to my handy-dandy cricket bat. Very “Shaun of the Dead” if you ask me. And like Shaun, I aimed for the head and cracked a few zombies in the skull a few times to make sure they were good and double-dead.

That's pretty much how it looks when you play the game.

The game’s menu is on the Wii U gamepad, so instead of having to press pause, you just look down and slide the inventory in to view, and the game on the screen pauses while you rummage through your pack to figure out what you want to use or discard. Now, this is a really interesting use of the gamepad and I actually liked it. What was hard was that the mini-map was down there as well, and having to look at my hands while also running on the screen was a little difficult. Especially when little red blips show up on it to tell you where zombies are and you don’t immediately look at the controller to see if there’s danger. It’s going to take a lot for gamers to get used to that on Nintendo’s new system.

The graphics were good. They were passable for current-gen systems but nothing too impressive for a next-gen machine. I suppose that’s actually a compliment for a Nintendo console as they’ve never been the most graphically-intensive machines on the market. Often times, if you crack a shot off at a zombie’s head, you might actually give them a real close haircut and expose their brain.

Zombie John!

Something fun was that when I actually died in the demo, I was put in the place of another survivor and I actually encountered my past-self in game as a zombie. When I killed that version of me, I could loot myself and get all of my previous items back. That kind of reminded me of the old "Diablo II" mechanic where you could loot your corpse. Something fun they were doing at the booth was also allowing you to use the camera on the Wii U to zombify yourself and I was told that you could even put zombie-you in "ZombiU."

All in all I think that “ZombiU” might present an interesting experience for a title on the Wii U. The game isn’t anything new, but it utilizes enough of the technology available in the system for it to be somewhat interesting to people who pick it up for the first time. I’m equating it to “Red Steel.” Hopefully it is much more refined and well executed than the other Ubisoft flop. Keep your eyes out for this game to come out Dec. 31.

Assassin's Creed: Liberation sneaks onto the PS Vita

I am beyond excited about this because it has me all excited about my PS Vita for once. "Assassin's Creed: Liberation" is the first game to come to a Sony handheld that is a story about a character that is not the focus of a major console game. Of course, the social games and phone games weaved in and out of the stories and other characters, but "Liberation" follows Aveline de Grandpre, a French/African woman from New Orleans.

That is a serious machete...

Based on the trailer, it appears that there are several uses of the Vita's touch mechanics being featured in this game.

The "Touch to Kill" demonstration was especially interesting. I'm not sure how it's activated or how one would pause mid fight like that, but that seems like it would make the game much less difficult than having to actually fight and press buttons to react.

Of course, the fighting system was made easier when the "Instant Kill" was added in the most recent "AC" games, letting you string several killing moves together. But, this fighting system seems to eliminate that completely and provide a more cinematic experience rather than immersive gameplay. That could bode ill for the franchise since it has previously heavily relied on reactionary combat mechanics. However, if executed properly, this could be a fun feature for someone weary of pressing the small buttons on the handheld.

The "Touch to Move" system is familiar to those who played "Uncharted: Golden Abyss," and as we see in the video it is used for things like rowing a canoe.

The rear touchpad on the Vita is probably my least favorite thing attached to the system. Every time it gets activated, I'm unaware of it and all of a sudden things start going haywire as my fingers are all over it and the Vita begins to freak out with too many digits on its back like a spastic cat. You really have to work at doing stuff with the rear touchpad, but once you get it down it works fine.

Graphically, "Liberation" seems to be pretty impressive overal,l but in the trailer you can somewhat see blocky figures and less-than-detailed character models. I'll definitely be judging this harshly since I loved the way "Uncharted: Golden Abyss" looked on the Vita. However, since this game is made specifically for the handheld, I have a strong feeling they'll be up to par with the power of the system.

Blow darts. Nice.

Plot-wise I'm not too concerned about what this has to do with the overall story of "AC," but the scuttlebutt is that Aveline will indeed interact with Connor either in this game or in "ACIII" at some point. What their relationship is and how it plays out will either be really cool, or just a passing lame cameo. Hopefully, events will cross over in both games that either explain a plot point in one, or solve a plot point in another.

Ubisoft is quickly becoming a powerhouse developer since the level of work they put into their games is almost second-to-none. The success of their franchises is obvious, even though most of their games don't really translate to FPS or RTS crowds. Even their press conference was heralded as probably the best of all of E3 this year due to their lineup on the Wii U and other systems. Some big things are coming from this company, and "Assassin's Creed: Liberation" definitely appears to be one of them.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist and stealth in games

Since it's announcement at E3, "Splinter Cell: Blacklist" has had minimal buzz. Many people were convinced that Sam Fisher had hung up his night-vision goggles for good after rescuing his daughter and storming 3rd Echelon in the last "Splinter Cell" game. Clearly Ubisoft isn't done with Sam, as this new game indicates - but he's not alone in his mission now.

Can he be stealthy in daylight like that?

The game trailer shows other individuals working alongside Sam in the field. While he's always had a handler or a mission consultant, much like Solid Snake of "Metal Gear Solid," Sam's been a lone wolf when taking care of business.

The previous installment in the series, "Splinter Cell: Conviction," was quite possibly the most brutal and visceral game to date and featured Sam going to town on his enemies with very few resources aside from those he acquired in the field. This meant that sneaking around and patience was imperative to his operations. Without the normal amount of 3rd Echelon gear, Sam was out-gunned, out-manned, and out-matched. But he out-spied the spies.

Ubisoft has been releasing some videos as of late with developer commentary about the game to the fans. Their latest segment talks about being a "ghost" in stealth games. This is just a little funny since the "Ghost Recon" games address about this all the time, but they're more about being a ghost and placing yourself in the proper spot to avoid conflict or ambush. "Splinter Cell" has a different definition as being a ghost could mean avoiding conflict altogether. Check it out:

Stealth games have come a long way in the past couple of years, but this does raise a good point. What is good stealth and how do you define that in a game using gameplay elements? Obviously in games like "Splinter Cell" there's a quality to how stealthy you can be based purely off of how many firefights you get into or how many times enemies notice you. Games like

"Assassin's Creed" portray stealth as just being seen less until you need to make the kill or being sneaky. You don't really have the same options as toying with the enemy or complete avoidance at times.

But those are made by the same company, what about other games with stealth. "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" had a prominent stealth element. For that game, finding alternate routes and hiding bodies was crucial to staying hidden. It was also more difficult through a first-person perspective, but Adam Jensen had x-ray vision and cyborg augmentations to aid the player in exchange for the sacrifice of spatial awareness.

"Skyrim" does the same thing with the ability to hide in almost plain sight and muffle your movement. They also up the damage of stealth attacks to help players maintain secrecy while hiding as opposed to having to duke it out with every guard.

Sam Fisher practiced parkour before it was cool.

On the flip side, there are games that tout stealth but are really not stealthy at all. They merely add an element of silent movement to a desired location to get the drop on the enemy.

Example? The "Uncharted" series. Nathan Drake will always having to fight his way out of a situation, there is almost no avoiding conflict at all in his sections. While he can certainly stealth kill enemies, that doesn't mean you can actually go around all of them and advance. Maybe this is a design choice because Drake isn't a master assassin or spy, but the lack of the option is glaringly present.

Even other role-playing games suffer from this. "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" said you could sneak around enemies in the game, but there was no avoiding conflict at all. There was just back stabbing and tactical stealth as opposed to practical stealth.

Unless your team was made up of Mission Vao and just yourself and your class was Scoundrel and you could both sneak around enemies, there was literally no way of avoiding a fight. Even with that example I'm not sure you could avoid fighting.

So the question still stands: what does it mean to be a "ghost" in a game? Does it mean being completely invisible and completing an objective without killing a single person? Does it mean toying with your enemies to manipulate them to your advantage? Does it mean taking each person one by one and ensuring that there are no survivors while no alarm is sounded? Give us your opinions and definitions of a "ghost."

Who's Watching the WatchDogs? We are.

Want information about "WatchDogs?" Get in line. Ubisoft is being as tight-lipped and shady about their new title as their protagonist Aiden Pearce. Looking like a modern version of comic-book characters The Question or Rorschach, Pearce seems to be a surveillance and technology nut. Motives? Unknown. Objective? Unknown. What everyone does know is what Mr. Pearce can do with his smartphone and a telescoping nightstick. God help you if he gets his hands on a gun too. How do we know this? Well, Ubisoft showed a rather impressive demo of the game at E3 this year and talk hasn't stopped since then. Check it out.

The first thing everyone wanted to know was just what system that game was running on. The graphics are stellar. From the rain glistening off the buildings, to the wind blowing clothes around and even the lighting. It's reminiscent of the graphical magic of "Red Dead Redemption."

Character animations look remarkably smooth as well. The conversation between Aiden and his companion was like watching two actors hash it out on set. Combat animations are glorious. From the shooting, to the sliding over car hoods and rescuing innocent bystanders. Of course, it's entirely possible that the entire thing was scripted for purposes of the demo to the public, so one has to assume it won't be that awesome during gameplay. Regardless, it still looks about ten levels of awesome.

Very classy, Aiden.

Aiden seems to only need one tool for this entire game, his smartphone, which he pulls out just as much as an antsy teenager at the mall waiting for a text from a crush. No one suspects the dude in a trench coat looking at his phone. Apparently everyone should now because using just his phone Aiden can stop traffic, disrupt telecommunications, hack into phone conversations, background check individuals in any environment and I'd be surprised if he didn't have "Angry Birds" and a wicked-awesome HD camera on that thing too.

Preying on our dependence on technology is a stroke of genius and honestly scarily realistic. Aiden's tools are simple, of course a multi-purposed hacking tool that can do all of the above might be a tough thing to find. He doesn't seem to need a gun unless his opponents have them.

The question remains, though: Just who is Aiden Pearce.

When the Vault talked with Adam Sessler at E3, he was very excited about "WatchDogs" and what it could mean for the industry. However, he brought up a good point. Are all of Aiden's tools and abilities going to be used as gimmicks and become old fast, or will they be crucial tools that can be used at the player's discretion? Worse, will they only be available when the game allows them to be used? The answer will dramatically change how the game is played and how fun the game itself will be.

After only seeing the demo, no one is quite sure how open-ended the game will be or how many tools Aiden will be able to use to escape those following him, and how much you'll be able to play as his pursuers. At the end of the demo, the audience was able to see Aiden running from the police through another person's eyes. Who is this person? Will we get to play as him? How often? So many questions, and not enough answers. Maybe that's how Ubisoft wants it.

Keeping with their apparent theme of sci-fi thrillers like "Assassin's Creed" and "Ghost Recon: Future Soldier," "WatchDogs" will fit in nicely with Ubisoft's line-up.

I will never trust anyone on the street with their phone out again.

E3 2012: Ubisoft Press Conference

So if you didn't watch the Ubisoft press event, we're going to give you a recap of what happened! This marks the start of our E3 2012 coverage!

After a somewhat fog-filled and anxious wait in the venue, the crowd was greeted by a cacophony of sights and sounds of music and dancing. A very energetic preview of the new music and moves of "Just Dance 4" was accompanied by a performance from rapper Flo Rida which was...interesting. There seems to be a theme going around of celebrities making appearances at E3 press events.

While the dancing was entertaining, we really didn't see anything more than what a person can see online via trailers. It just seemed to be another dance game.

The first actual shot of gameplay footage we had was during the "Far Cry 3" portion of the presentation. I hadn't actually done any sort of research on the title, and apparently I needed it as I had absolutely no idea what was going on in the demo. What I did see was that there were people on an island, the player character had a bow and a gun, and he shot a lot of people while another person seemed to yell at him from off-screen.

Despite my canonical confusion, the footage was beautiful and apparently there's an entire system of islands you can explore in the game. The gameplay seems very reminiscent of "Bulletstorm," which means a lot of shooting but some close-quarters combat. There was a moment when a tiger was released from its cage and it ran amok on some of the enemies while the player picked them off from afar, but other than that there seemed to be an overwhelming sense of indifference to the game. It was impressive, but it was just another shooter.

What really picked the audience up was the new "Rayman Legends." Three players cooperatively working together on the Wii U gave us all quite a show. While two players controlled Rayman and his buddy, another used the touchscreen to cut ropes, lower ramps and move obstacles out of their way so they could continue on their path.

The grand finale was all three players working on some sort of constantly moving chase scene where the player using the touchscreen hit points on the path which created the music to the entire portion of the level. It was a beautiful show of streamlined gameplay and a fun design of old platforming. The audience cheered and clapped not just for the pleasant surprise of Rayman, but also for an excellent demonstration of the Wii U's capabilities.

There were several more trailers featured during the event, including one for Wii U exclusive survival-horror game "ZombiU" and an Avengers game as well. While those were interesting ideas, a lack of gameplay footage made us just feel like we were watching clips from any press-packet we could get online.

Then the big gun, "Assassin's Creed 3." A trailer and then a gorgeous demo from the team working on it wooed the crowd. The environment, the fighting, the character models and even the voice acting was spot on. Building upon the framework of past installments in the Assassin's Creed series, subtle - and not so sublte - changes to the gameplay could be spotted during the demonstration. A bow and arrow replaces Ezio's crossbow for the newest protagonist, most likely implemented to keep in theme with his Native American heritage. One of the smaller additions to the game that we all noticed was the ability to pick up weapons on the go and seamlessly transition from a kill to running. It was beautiful to watch, and of course we're still eagerly awaiting the game to see if it lives up to what we've seen.

The newest assassin, Connor, has a more sleek fighting style than his predecessors.

"Shootermania" followed "Assassin's Creed 3," which seemed to be a letdown for the crowd. The blatant battle of the sexes that was put on between girl "Counterstrike" stars and male "Counterstrike" stars was a little awkward to watch and we really didn't see all that much gameplay. I'm not sure if the game is just player versus player or if there's a story, but really it just seems like Ubisoft is creating a competitor for the online gaming gun circuit for E-Sports.

The best was saved for last. The crowd was built up with "Rayman." It was on the edge of its seat after "Assassin's Creed 3." Now they got what Ubisoft was holding back with. "Watch Dogs" seemed to be an amalgam of "Assassin's Creed" and "The Bourne Identity." The combination of stealth, technology and narrative had the crowd cheering and asking for more than the demo could give us. Just watch:

I can't even begin to describe it. It's just so amazing looking. I just hope the game itself is as good as the demo we were shown.

Industry Interview with Nao Higo of Ubisoft

So, we went to Ubisoft when we were making our Rocksmith experiment with the burning questions you submitted to us, and Nao Higo, one of the producers of the game, was kind enough to talk to us about the experiment and working on the game! And he was even kinder by letting us know some very important information about an upcoming expansion! Hankering to learn bass guitar though? NEVER FEAR! Higo confirmed that it is true that Ubisoft is indeed making a bass guitar portion for the game so look out for that in the future!

When we asked Higo what he thought of the experiment itself, he said, "I thought it was really great! In terms of you guys really taking the time and trying to do it as scientific as you can achieve with the people that you have available...I thought that was a great thing."

Nao Higo himself!

So not only was I feeling really good about our team, I felt even better that one of the professionals behind this game even said that he liked our experiment. Well done, GCV, well done. But enough of that! Let's get down to the nitty gritty.

We began to talk about the game itself, and really what the goal was behind making a game like this that was so outside the realm of Ubisoft's usual fare.

"I think the key thing that really started it off is that our president here in the San Francisco office, Laurent Detoc, he is actually a guitarist," said Higo. "But he's really into games with benefits. So games that actually have something you can take away from the game...So when he came across this piece of technology made by the guys over at GameTank, he was really excited about it when he first saw it."

GameTank, as you can already guess, is the company that developed the software the Ubisoft utilized in Rocksmith. GameTank is now a part of Ubisoft, as Rolling Stone explains in their article about the development of the game.

"But then when the project came around our way...we said 'Okay, well, where are we going to take this game and what are we going to do with it? Is it going to be a hardcore guitar game...or are we going to try and make it a guitar game for everyone?' I think the reason why we picked our approach was simply because Paul [Paul Cross - Creative director for the game] and I didn't know how to play the guitar whatsoever. I hadn't even held a guitar in my hands till getting involved in this project." Higo explained.

So the team was now faced with the challenge of getting guys like Higo and Cross to play the guitar and what it would take to get that done, shaking the screen and the audience sometimes booing. The first barrier they had to get over was getting the player comfortable with just "making noise" Higo talked about how other music games let you know when you get things wrong right away. The biggest fear of musicians is making a fool of themselves when they screw up, and the team had to find a way to make sure the player didn't fall into the trap while learning.

As far as the music is concerned, we noticed and you can too if you research the game and the set list, that there is a broad range of types of artists and guitarists. It felt like the creators were trying to reach every kind of taste with the game. 

"We actually wanted to cover a range of genres and relative difficulty of playing so that people who are newbies at playing the guitar can have songs that are immensely fun for beginners to play while we offer songs that are for people who are familiar with playing the guitar...there's still enough of a challenge," Higo said.

While other games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero sold well in America, Ubisoft noticed that their foreign sales and feedback were lacking as the markets there felt the songs were a little too "US centric." 

Higo went on to explain that "We looked at some of the competing products out on the market as far as rhythm games and what they've done as far as their music lineup, and we thought about it from a worldwide appeal standpoint."

Switching gears for a second,  I want to ask you a question: Did you see a lot of advertisement for Rocksmith about? No? Well, neither did I. I assumed it was because the game itself required, a system and an actual electric guitar. The amount of gamers that have something as expensive as an instrument is probably not as high as you think, so that being said, mass advertising might have reached people who didn't really understand that they needed a real guitar to play it.

What's scary was that I was right. Higo explained that they didn't want people to feel robbed by the game if they bought it and didn't have all the necessary equipment needed to enjoy it. So from their first press announcement, they tried to get the message across that you needed a real guitar. If you saw that announcement, you would have seen a bunch of people just plugging in electric guitars to systems and jamming away, no game screen, no gameplay, nothing but people with actual instruments.

And now, something for you educational buffs. I asked about the decisions in regards to what notes and information to give the player as the difficulty increased, and Higo said that they had a team of people breaking down each song and the technique challenges working on the game. So, naturally, they went to that team and their teaching experience to help make the decisions on where the player would be in learning a song and how they would teach the player.

Playing video games and guitar at the same time. For science.

Higo also talked about how they've seen people progress much further by playing the other songs the game recommends and the technique challenges along with specific songs. We have to agree with him because if we hadn't done the technique challenges we wouldn't have gotten as far as we did with the game.

After we stopped joking about "introducing the pinky" when you play, I asked Higo what one of the biggest challenges was when working on the game.

"From a development standpoint I think the biggest challenge was trying to convey all the necessary information to the player in a way where it's still coherent, in a way that people can still process." With all that is being thrown at the player, Ubisoft didn't want to clutter the screen with information or make the player feel overwhelmed when looking at the screen. So, of course, the decision was to make the game as streamlined as possible for the player's benefit.

One of the things that they didn't expect while working on the project was having to build a game with such a small team as the project itself was a gamble. Higo talked about how they couldn't ramp up the team size and had to take their time with production because they didn't know how the game would go over. Every day was a new challenge that they overcame.

Well there you have it folks! We're so thankful to Nao Higo and his team for making this game and for taking the time to talk to us. 

The videos detailing out experiment with Rocksmith can be viewed right here:

Rocksmith Experiment: Week 1 -


Rocksmith Experiment: Week 2 -

Rock on Vault fans!