During the incredible rise -- and subsequent rapid decline -- of rhythm games, a few aspiring plastic-instrument aficionados wondered what it be like to take their skills to the next level and learn how to play a real guitar. Rock Band 3 tried to fulfill that desire in 2010, but it only worked via midi, which meant the game relied solely on finger placement and didn't actually hear what you were playing. Power Gig, released the same year, came with a mini-sized six-string guitar, but only supported basic two-note chording and didn't do much to teach hopeful players how to shred for real. Enter Rocksmith in 2011, which while still not perfect, came the closest to mixing a real guitar learning tool with a video game.

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Aerosmith – Walk This Way

Alice in Chains – Stone

Arctic Monkeys – R U Mine?

Avenged Sevenfold – Bat Country

B'z - Ultra Soul

Bob Dylan – Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door

EarlyRise - Wasteland

Iron Maiden – The Trooper

Jack White – Sixteen Saltines

Kiss – Rock And Roll All Nite

La Sera – Love That’s Gone

Mastodon – Blood and Thunder

Oasis – Don’t Look Back In Anger

Pantera – Cemetery Gates

Paramore – Now

R.E.M. – Losing My Religion

Radiohead – Paranoid Android

Red Fang – Wires

Rise Against – Savior

Screaming Females – Rotten Apple

Slayer – War Ensemble

Splashh – All I Wanna Do

The Kinks – You Really Got Me

The Rolling Stones – Paint It, Black

The Shins – For A Fool

The Smashing Pumpkins – Cherub Rock (pre-order bonus)

The Smashing Pumpkins – The Chimera

The Who – My Generation

Weezer – Say It Ain’t So

White Zombie – Thunder Kiss ‘65

Rocksmith allowed players to plug in a real guitar -- any guitar -- and start hammering away with their favorite bands. This was the first major guitar-based game that actually listened to the tones you were playing. This allowed for a much more interactive and genuine guitar-playing experience since you could transpose on the fly; there are multiple ways to play each chord shape on a guitar neck, and since Rocksmith listened to the tones you were playing, it meant you could form chords the way you wanted to as long as they were composed of the right notes. It was really quite amazing technology.Now the developers at Ubisoft are getting ready to release their sophomore effort: Rocksmith 2014 . We had a chance to play around with the PC version for the past week or so and it's obvious that the team took a lot of feedback from the original to heart and incorporated many improvements into the sequel.As with the original, you can play lead and rhythm guitar as well as bass. It's important to note that Rocksmith 2014 is as much a teaching tool as it is an interactive game experience. There are more than 85 lessons -- ranging from bends to accents to slides to chord formation -- included. There's also a handy finger position guide on the interface now, which is one of the most helpful learning tools added to the 2014 edition. This is a huge improvement to the game as it teaches new users how to form chords in the most efficient way possible to easily move to other shapes.Of course you can just jump right into any of the songs and start jamming, but Rocksmith 2014 also includes missions this time around. Think of them as challenges or mini-quests that take you through a guitar-learning journey. Rocksmith 2014 suggests missions in response to what you've done in the game and what it identifies as your weaknesses. For example, if you're continually missing an easy bend in a particular song, Rocksmith 2014 may send you on a mission to complete a basic bends lesson. Missing a more complicated bend? You'll likely be challenged to complete a harder bend lesson to prove you understand the concept. Complete more missions and you'll be rewarded with more experience levels and unlocks such as new graphical inlays for your guitar neck.Guitarcade is back. If you're not familiar with Rocksmith, the Guitarcade was a collection of mini-games that take a fun approach to teaching you guitar basics such as scale shapes, chords and rhythm. All of the games in the Guitarcade have been revamped with better graphics, and a few have even become more epic story-driven experiences. One of the new mini-games is Star Chords, which takes the form of a space shooter with laser fire triggered through playing specific chords.As an experienced guitarist, one of the biggest complaints I had with the original was the difficulty limitations. In order to serve new players, every song in Rocksmith was locked to the lowest difficulty setting and you had to play a dozen or more times to unlock the full instrumentation. Rocksmith 2014 allows you to set your difficulty level, so there's no more frustration with having to play a song over and over and over again at an easy level if you're already familiar with the basics of playing guitar. Now you can start with every note unlocked, or settle somewhere in-between and work your way up.Master mode, which allows you to play a song completely from memory with no notation help, is also back. However, it's slightly different this time around. In Rocksmith, you had to nail an entire song nearly perfectly to unlock master mode. You also had to play the entire song in master mode, meaning you had no visual cues throughout the entire experience. In Rocksmith 2014, if you continually nail a section, the notes will gradually fade away for that phrase and you’ll be dropped into master mode automatically. This allows you to learn songs gradually and lets you build up to the more difficult solo sections without having to play the entire song without guiding notes.One of the more interesting new features is session mode, where you can set a key, pick a scale and start jamming with a band that plays along to your rhythm. This is great for both the beginner who wants to learn scales in a more dynamic environment as well as for more experienced guitarists who want to try out new riffs with a full band.Rhythm games are all about the music, and Rocksmith 2014 includes a good variety of guitar-driven tracks ranging from classic rock to metal to contemporary pop. So far Ubisoft has announced the following tracks:And there are still more than 20 songs to be unveiled before Rocksmith 2014 is released on October 22. Like the original, Ubisoft will be releasing downloadable songs over time. You will also be able to import most -- if not all -- of your library from Rocksmith into Rocksmith 2014, although licensing specifics for each and every song aren't final at this time. You can also use your cable from the original in Rocksmith 2014, so no need to upgrade your hardware.All in all we were impressed with what we played. We were also pleased to see the load times reduced and the interface cleaned up so you can start playing as quickly as possible instead of waiting to rock. Even with its flaws the original Rocksmith showed a lot of potential as a guitar teaching tool, and Rocksmith 2014 looks like it's going to be a big step forward in achieving that goal while being more open and tweakable to keep experienced guitarists interested.