I cannot praise this game highly enough. My only knowledge and ability to play or even hold a guitar was the Guitar Hero series that could only mimic the feeling of strumming a melody.

Rocksmith has allowed me to take that step from Guitar Hero into playing an actual guitar, and LEARN. I spent hours and hours watching YouTube tutorials, but it doesn't give you that "hands-on" experience that this game gives you. The lessons are absolutely BRUTAL as a beginner, but it teaches you where your hands should be stretching for power chords (also barre chords, but I'm a wimp and haven't gotten to those because I'm not good enough yet).

This also brings me to my next point, which is that you always feel like there's another level to progress up to when you're brand new. You start to pick up very small, but important fundamentals like shifting, sustains, HO/POs (hammer-ons and pull-offs) and bends. This then provides you with a framework to start playing what could be considered "easy" songs (with help with the game's brilliant dynamic difficulty setting that you can start from zero and build up to the complete set of notes you need to hit for the full song). I've only just started to successfully hit chords about about 20-30 hours into Rocksmith, which I'm very shocked about considering that I was a complete beginner before the end of last year!

You can also install a bunch of custom songs that don't appear in the game via mods, which increases your motivation to play more as you are digging deep into tracks that you love and have a passion for (for example, George Harrison's Set On You that you would otherwise miss out on through lack of DLC). With how diverse and well-contained the process is with Rocksmith 2014, I don't see any need to be paying for a hefty annual subscription for Rocksmith+ to be quite honest.

If you're a budding enthusiast wanting to take the same step I did and venture into the land of real rock, that also enjoys kinetic & visual learning - then this is the learning experience for you!

i use rocksmith for custom songs and a cheap man's amp sim

Great when it works. But, y'know, ubisoft... (eyeroll)