Chris Worfolk's Blog

One thing I have noticed is that Rocksmith cannot tell the difference between certain things. Take accents for example. It does not know, or at least does not call you on, whether you have played a note extra hard. So when I did the practice track I pretty much did all the notes the same and it gave me 100%.

I have also noticed that in the videos, they tend to finger the string as low down the fret as possible. Indeed, when you are on the first fret, if you do not finger it at the very bottom, Rocksmith will think you are playing an open string and say you missed the note.

Another unfortunate reality of Rocksmith is that you get worse before you get better. At first you sound okay, because it is just giving you one note at a time. Then, as you move on, it gives you chords that you invariably miss at first, sounding like a cat being strangled.

The skin on the end of my fretting hand is starting to build up, which I suppose is a good thing, but it makes my fingers more slippery on the strings.

My last thing to moan about is the automatic difficultly adjustment. When you start it replaces the chords with a single note. I can do this. Then as you get better it replaces them with the actual chords. These I have not mastered yet.

The problem is that when I miss all the chords it replaces them with the single notes again. So I then have to do the song a few times and nail it to get the chords back. Or go into riff repeater and manually set it to a higher difficultly level.

The fingers on my fretting hand are starting to show the scars of war.

I played Scale Racer for the first time today. It is an okay game, but I think I prefer Scale Warriors. I played that too and managed to complete level three, as well as another level on Return to Castle Chordead. Now I am stuck on a boss that looks suspiciously like the Devil in Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny.

Following Jan’s recent comments on my posts, I decided to give Blitzkrieg Bop a go on score attack. I managed to complete it on both easy and medium. I cannot quite finger the chords in time yet though, so I have not been able to complete it on hard. Will have to keep working.

For the December event of Sunday Assembly Leeds we did a theme of “festivities” including “Santa is doing his best”.

Two weeks in.

I played Temple of Bends today, which is a technique game for bending strings (surprisingly). I find bends quite hard. I normally need to get three fingers on a string to make it work.

I made some good progress on the other games too. I set several new high scores on Ninja Slide and completed the second level of Return to Castle Chordead. I think that is probably a better game than Star Chords. The problem with Star Chords is that as you level up it gives you new chords, but not much chance to learn them. So now I am on level 3 or something, but I cannot remember, or go back to level 1 chords. With Castle Chordead, once you complete a level you can always go back to it and each level builds on your existing chords anyway.

There are still a few symbols I don’t really understand. I am going to try asking on the Ubisoft forums to see if anyone can tell me what lesson it is that I need to look at for them.

On Saturday we went to Tropical World. It was our last chance to go before the close for a month for refurbishment. The fact that we had not been for a year before that was irrelevant. We had to get there in time!

We made too much food. But not quite as much as we normally over-make…

I finally did that bends lesson!

I have also been working on score attacks and managed to complete at least two – Knights of Cydonia and R U Mine? I failed a lot too. The difference between them is surprisingly though. Just on easy, I found Knights of Cydonia really difficult whereas R U Mine was essentially just 2, 2, 5 all the way through.

I also tried out the shop to buy more songs. The selection is pretty poor. There was a huge list of good songs somewhere so I’ll have to look up if/how to access them. A lot of bands are missing from the in-game store and also some of the songs mention packs, which are not listed on the packs page.

Also the Playstation Store seems pretty shitty. The integration is good – I just buy the song and it downloads and installs into the game. However you cannot just buy it. You have to preload money into your wallet. This can only be done in £5 increments and is non-refundable. So to buy a £2.39 song actually costs you £5 because that is the minimum you can load onto the store.

I was also a little worried about the content of the additional songs. I downloaded “Bring Me To Life” which will probably be okay anyway as I think it is by the Rocksmith team (I am not sure they all are). It turns out to be a really straight forward tab but I suspect that it actually just how the song is.

Another interesting milestone today was that I have now been practicing for 30 hours. So although I am only on day 12, and will continue for the 60 days, if I had spaced out my practice I would be at the mid-point today.

Am I half way to learning the guitar? It does not feel like it. Most of the songs I am about 20-30% master on. I have completed four or five score attacks but only on easy. It could be that a lot of time is spent learning the fundamentals and then it all comes quite fast but the amount of chords I have to do make me think otherwise. I guess time will tell.

The lessons need improving. The way they work is that you watch a video and then get a quick riff to practice on. You also get a practice track. The practice track is good because it lets you use Riff Repeater to slow it down to a pace you can manage and built up. Unfortunately the lesson examples don’t and these are often harder.

Take the lesson on hammer-ons and pull-offs for example. The practice track is easy because it is all on one string. However the riff for the hammer-on video is really hard because you have to quick switch between two strings. So even though I can do the practice track, I can’t do the lesson on hammer-ons and therefore don’t even get to find out what a pull-off is.

The bends lesson has a similar problem. It assumes you’ve mastered navigating the fretboard and so doesn’t really teach you anything until you are really good at this, even though you’re learning about something totally different.

I had a bad day on Scale Warriors too. I re-committed to not looking at the fretboard. This meant I took loads of damage and died really quickly. Also once you miss a string you pretty much have to look anyway unless you can work out what string you are on by the sound it makes and adjust. I’m learning to do this, but it is a skill you have to re-learn every time the game changes the scale so is slow progress.

I’m also convinced that the game is missing a few of my notes as a couple of times I have looked down to check why my guy is not attacking and spotted my fingers are on the correct string and fret.

I also experienced my second crash. This time it happened on the guitarcade games menu.

On a more positive note however I finally managed to do the hammer-ons lesson. It took ages trying to do the lesson, then an evening working on the fingering while talking to friends followed by another age trying to do the lesson, but I managed it in the end (possibly by luck). Then I got stuck on the combining hammer-ons and pull-offs, but at least that is further on.

The NFL playoffs are finally set! So now it’s time to take a look at each team’s chances to win the Super Bowl based on who they’ll have to play, and where the oddsmakers have them slated. At Betfair online, betting odds are already posted for each team’s likelihood to win the Super Bowl, which gives us a good gauge to use in predicting outcomes. So without further ado, here’s how the match-ups break down, and how each team projects to do.

AFC PLAYOFF PICTURE

(5) Kansas City Chiefs @ (4) Indianapolis Colts
These teams have almost even odds to win the Super Bowl, with the Colts at 33/1 and the Chiefs at 37/1. Given how the Chiefs fell off late in the season, as well as how easily the Colts handled them in Kansas City just a few weeks ago, Indy is the favorite.

(6) San Diego Chargers @ (3) Cincinnati Bengals
At 17/1, the Bengals now have the 6th best overall odds to win the Super Bowl following a 5-1 finish to the season. They have to be considered a strong favorite to knock out San Diego.

TBA @ (1) Denver Broncos
If the preceding match-ups play out as predicted, this match would see the Colts facing a Broncos team with 3/1 odds to win it all. Indy may be one of the only teams to have beaten the Broncos, but in Denver, with Peyton Manning’s offense as hot as it is, the Broncos are heavy favorites.

TBA @ (2) New England Patriots
That would leave the Bengals facing off with the Pats (9/1 odds) in what would be an interesting game. Tom Brady is always a good bet in the playoffs, and with Julian Edelman looking more and more like Wes Welker, the Pats’ offense may be at its best. However, if you’re picking an upset anywhere, the Bengals may be an interesting team to take here.

NFC PLAYOFF PICTURE

(5) San Francisco 49ers @ (4) Green Bay Packers
San Francisco has 10/1 odds to win it all, next to Green Bay’s 22/1 long shot, but due to the strangeness of playoff seeding this game will be in Green Bay. That’s always dangerous, but the 49ers have been strong on the road all season, losing only to Seattle and New Orleans – arguably the two strongest home teams.

(6) New Orleans Saints @ (3) Philadelphia Eagles
Road games are trouble for the Saints, and with the teams at just about even odds – 26/1 for the Saints, and 24/1 for the Eagles – this one should be close. In Philly, that gives the Eagles a slight edge.

TBA @ (1) Seattle Seahawks
If games play out as discussed above, the 49ers would be traveling to Seattle, where they simply haven’t played well in the past couple of seasons. This is budding into a strong rivalry, but we’d give Seattle (with the best odds to win the Super Bowl at 14/5) the nod.

TBA @ (2) Carolina Panthers
Eagles @ Panthers would be an enjoyable game, but the Panthers, with 9/1 Super Bowl odds, ought to have the defense to stop the Eagles, or for that matter anyone else that might get through.

Of course, anything could happen in the end. But the way things are slated, the teams with first round byes look well poised to advance to the semi-finals, with New England perhaps being the most vulnerable should they face Cincinnati. Whatever the case, we’re in for some great football!

Last Wednesday, Sherlock returned to our screens after two years.

It was an okay return. But I was less of a fan than most. Firstly there was the endless comic relief. I do not remember any from the first two series. It was a series detective show. Now you have Anderson is the crazy comic relief character. Not to mention everyone spent a great deal of time laughing at John’s mustache. Because anyone with a mustache must be an object of ridicule.

Secondly, the sweeping cinematographic changes made it feel like not-Sherlock to me. The first two series had a very distinctive style that stamped their brand on the episodes. This one departed from that significantly.

Thirdly, the mystery was not very good. It was almost an afterthought that they plugged into the story half way through. It was mostly about Sherlock turning up and all the personal drama surrounding that. You can say “that is fine, lots of shows do that”, but most shows produce more than three episodes per series. To waste one everyone hugging and making up, with a small mystery thrown in on the sidelines resulted in an episodes that felt crowded but unsatisfying to me.

That is not to say I did not enjoy it. It was very funny. But it did not possess the enthralling Sherlock qualities that I fell in love with.