The self-proclaimed fastest way to learn the guitar has slid knee-first onto the current-gen stage, and although it doesn’t bring much in the way of new features, its resolution bump and support for existing DLC libraries facilitates a smooth transition for existing players looking to shift their interactive guitar practice sessions onto shiny new hardware. Unfortunately some slight audio latency issues inherent to the digital-only design of current-gen consoles means that Rocksmith 2014 for PS4 and Xbox One is slightly inferior overall to its last-gen and PC counterparts, but not by much.

When I reviewed Rocksmith 2014 a year ago, I was enamoured with its expertly curated track list, incredibly useful Riff Repeater tool, expanded Guitarcade games and self-indulgent Session mode. Nothing has changed; Rocksmith 2014 is still a really fun way to practice the guitar and its colourful note highways are certainly clearer running at 1080p - even if it doesn't make an appreciable difference to the gameplay.

The 1080p visuals look sharp, but don't affect the experience much.

A year on the game also benefits from the hundreds of songs that have been released regularly as DLC since the game’s last-gen launch (at the time of review, these songs were still in the process of being populated across to the Xbox One's Marketplace and the PS4's PSN Store in dribs and drabs, but Ubisoft claims it will all be available soon). Happily there’s no charge to import any existing DLC you might already own for the game, so long as you’re sticking within the one console family - either moving from PS3 to PS4 or Xbox 360 to Xbox One - with the only downside being that your progress in each individual song will not transfer along with it.

Both the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game have their own respective exclusive features. On the Sony side, Rocksmith 2014 supports Remote Play via the PS Vita. This is hardly a useful feature - since you can’t plug your Real Tone cable into the Vita, all you can do is basically watch Master Mode versions of each song in the game and jam along either unplugged or connected to a guitar amp. Because you’re not actually interacting with the game, you don’t get scored and your in-game progress is unaffected, which largely defeats the purpose. Remote Play might be useful for some who have to surrender their television to another family member during practice time, but I found it to be a fairly superfluous feature.

A whopping 12 Hendrix songs are set to arrive as DLC in December. 'Scuse me while I kiss my spare time goodbye.

Xbox One owners get a slightly more valuable addition: support for voice commands in the game’s menus. This is certainly a welcome feature in theory - having to constantly pick up and put down the controller in order to navigate menus between songs has always been a little cumbersome. Using the Kinect’s microphone, you should be able to keep your fingers on the fretboard at all times. However, my experience with voice recognition on the Xbox One has always been a little hit and miss, and again with Rocksmith 2014 I found I had to repeat myself a little bit too much to make it worth my while. I suspect it might work more consistently for North American players, but if you’re an Australian like me or have an accent that’s anything other than ‘American’, your results may vary.

Setting high scores in the Guitarcade is slightly trickier with the added audio latency.

One problem that absolutely will be universal for anyone who picks up Rocksmith 2014 on PS4 or Xbox One, is the process of minimising audio latency during the initial setup. With the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, the optimal setup to eradicate the delay between what you played and what you heard was to run a digital video signal into your TV and an analogue audio signal into a separate hi-fi or headphone amp. Due to the fact that neither the PS4 nor Xbox One consoles feature analogue audio output, your best bet now is to run audio into an external device via an optical cable.

Unfortunately, there is still some audio lag present in this instance. To test it, I tried playing Foo Fighters’ Everlong on the PS3 using analogue audio outputs, and then again on the PS4 and Xbox One using the mandatory digital optical outputs. There was a small but still noteworthy reduction in my accuracy; on the PS3 I’m able to consistently achieve 99% of the notes (or 100% on a good day); on the PS4 and Xbox One I’ve only been able to scrape my way to 96% due to the latency and the occasional missed notes that result. Attempting a more complicated, solo-heavy song, such as Joe Satriani’s Satch Boogie or Pantera’s Cowboys From Hell, only makes the latency issues all the more pronounced.

Theoretically the latency could be reduced even further using a third party optical to RCA converter box, but this seems like a lot to ask of the consumer. Essentially, you need to go into Rocksmith 2014 on PS4 and Xbox One knowing that in order to 100% a song you’re going to have to contend not just with your own limitations as a player, but also an aural feedback loop that’s forever slightly behind the beat - and that’s a bit of a shame. (Note: if you don’t have an external amp and can only run the audio into your TV via HDMI, you will find an experience that’s virtually unplayable).