Review: Rocksmith for guitar lovers

ROCKSMITH

RATING T for Teen

Rocksmith trades in the now familiar plastic guitar with buttons for the real, six-stringed deal.

You simply plug your electric guitar or an acoustic guitar with a pickup into your console or computer. (For $199, you can get the software bundled with an entry-level Epiphone Les Paul Jr. guitar.)

Generation after generation of would-be Eric Claptons have tried learning the guitar with instructors, books and other teaching tools. Most of us get stuck at the intro to "Stairway to Heaven." With some minor guitar experience under our belt, we dared Rocksmith to teach, entertain and keep us engaged. It succeeded on all fronts.

Guitar lessons turn into a game: Keep in step with the colored, glowing and spinning rectangles that fall down the screen and land on a numbered fret. The more notes you get correct, the better your score.

It takes some getting used to. The descending rectangles are colored with a different hue for each of the six guitar strings. But most guitar strings aren't colored, so you have to mentally keep track of those color-and-string pairs, which change quickly during the action.

The Rocksmith playlist runs from classic rockers like The Animals and Cream to up-and-comers like Titus Andronicus and the Black Keys. There's also an "amp" mode in which you can play whatever you like, and you can download filters that add fuzz, feedback, distortion or other effects to the sound mix.

PLOT Learn to play the guitar

DETAILS Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, $80

BOTTOM LINE Rockin'!